HEADLINES OF THE DAY: ANOTHER 15,000 PEOPLE DIED YESTERDAY BECAUSE THEY WERE TOO POOR TO LIVE. THE RICH INCREASED THEIR WEALTH YESTERDAY BY $0.3 BILLION. THE 21st CENTURY VERSION OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION IS ONE DAY NEARER.
“O Ye rich ones on earth! The poor in your midst are My trust; guard ye My trust, and be not intent only on your own ease.”
Bahá’u’lláh
A preview of the unpublished book A CIVILIZATION WITHOUT A VISION WILL PERISH: AN INDEPENDENT SEARCH FOR THE TRUTH by David Willis at willisdavid167@gmail.com. CHAPTER 1: INDIFFERENCE TO POVERTY (Part 73). This blog is a continuation of the review of FREEDOM FROM WANT: THE REMARKABLE SUCCESS STORY OF BRAC, THE GLOBAL GRASSROOTS ORGANIZATION THAT’S WINNING THE FIGHT AGAINST POVERTY by Ian Smillie published 2009.
Learning organizations are aware of the limitations of their knowledge
In 1979, the Ford Foundation provided funding for David Korten to pay a visit to BRAC. He wrote about three types of organization: the ‘self-deceiving organization’; the ‘defeated organization’; and the ‘learning organization.” Learning organizations are “aware of the limitations of their knowledge of critical social dynamics which lie beyond their control, but not necessarily beyond their ability to influence.” “Error feedback is seen as a source of vital data for making adjustments.” “Intellectual integrity is combined with a sense of vitality and purpose.” BRAC, he said, “comes as near to a pure example of a learning organization as one is likely to find.” BRAC knew that the biggest barrier to real economic change in the village was the absence of viable, new, productive enterprises that could be taken up with at least some confidence by very poor women and men.
Chapter 8: A Chicken and Egg Problem
BRAC’s search for new income-generation activities would range far and wide over the years, but its work with poultry exemplifies the challenge in turning a good idea into a viable enterprise. The potential was clear because local chickens had serious limitations; they were scrawny and egg production was poor. The technology to produce a better chicken was readily available. Better chickens could produce more meat and more eggs. The cost of supplying a better breed of chicken would be offset against the higher income that it would generate. By 1978 BRAC was in its third year of poultry experiments, and there were still very few answers to the hurdles in what had looked like an obvious money-spinner.
BRAC established its own poultry farm
That year, BRAC established its own poultry farm at the TARC in Savar and started to hire specialized poultry farmers and trainers. It trained village women to be paravets as there was nothing complicated about vaccinating a chicken. BRAC bought vaccine wholesale, created a distribution network for its group of members, provided skill training to villagers, and started breeding its own chickens as parent stock. Through a process of trial and error, by 1979, there was a solid program that provided trainers, a model farm, vaccine, vaccinators, hens, cocks, fertile eggs, and loan money for people at each step in the chain.
There were more than 11,000 chick rearers
The issue of proper feed, especially for the youngest chickens, was a serious bottleneck to survival and optimal growth. No appropriate chicken feed available on the open market. A formula was devised that could be made from locally available ingredients. By 1991, BRAC had trained and financed 95 feed merchants. There were more than 11,000 chick rearers countrywide, supplying 750,000 high-yield chicks to 132,000 key rearers in 3,500 villages. Some 9,000 vaccinators treated 12.6 million chicks and mature birds.
The real challenges were the linkages
The supply of eggs soon began to outstrip demand. BRAC’s response was a new category of worker to market the eggs in nearby towns. Demand grew and the hatchery was expanded. The challenge was not so much the technical problems of breeding, vaccinating, and feeding a hybrid chicken. The real challenges were the linkages, creating commercial and social connections between poor women who had borrowed money for vaccine, eggs, and chicks, and backing it with the required training and extension services.
A centralized poultry feed plant
By 1992, more than 20,000 women had become involved in the poultry program, borrowing more than $8 million and demand for balanced chicken feed outstripped locally available inputs. A stopgap effort was devised in 1993 with BRAC’s creation of a centralized poultry feed plant, making a profit of $35,000. People could not be placed in competition with chickens for rice or wheat. BRAC explored the option of maize which could be grown on marginal land where it would not compete with food crops. BRAC imported maize seed, began experiments, loaned money to farmers who bought and planted the seeds, and BRAC purchased whatever they grew.
13 million broiler and layer parent chickens each year
In 2000, Abed and his board of governors decided to set up a modern, computer-regulated feed mill, turning out 10 metric tons of feed every hour, with its own laboratory where samples are tested at intervals every day. 30% goes to BRAC group members, the rest going to the open market, generating income for BRAC. The net profit on BRAC’s feed mill operations in 2007 was close to $500,000. BRAC could now consider a massive increase in its hatchery capacity, with six hatcheries producing 13 million broiler and layer parent chickens each year for sale to its own members and beyond.