Thousands of poor and marginal families living in Chalan Beel villages have become economically solvent by rearing ducks.
It is learnt, some 3,000 families of 31 villages of various Upazilas including Tarash of Sirajganj, Gurdaspur and Singra of Natore, Chatmohar and Bhangura of Pabna district are engaged in rearing ducks by making duck farms at their houses. Each of the duck firms holds 50 to 200 ducks.
Housewives of remote beel villages of Saguna, Baruhash, Mohishluti, Saigadighi, Naluakandi, Debipur, Moushuti, Handial and many other villages in the Chalanbeel are rearing ducks as an alternative source of income.
In the early morning, the housewives took their flock of ducks to the beels near their houses and after day’s work they revisited the beels to bring their ducks back home. Hearing the voices of their owners, the ducks assembled together and follow them to their houses.
Sakina of Saidadighi village, Asia of Nalukandi village, Shaida of Debipur village informed, in the past their only profession was to catch fish, dry and sell those in the markets.
Want and poverty was their perennial companion. Moreover, for the last three decades, the Chalanbeel becomes dry and paddy is cultivated there during the dry season. As a result, the families depending on fish farming and catching turned helpless and poor.
Many of those poor fishermen families took a loan from NGOs and started duck farming at their houses. The Department of Livestock also came forward to assist them by supplying an improved, hybrid variety of ducklings.
Those hybrid ducks got immense popularity among beel people for their speedy growth and laying of a large number of eggs. Within five years, the number of duckrearers increased in the Chalabeel areas.
Sakhina rears 120 ducks at her farm from which she gets 50 eggs daily. The cost of rearing ducks is also almost negligible. The ducks visited various beels and water bodies of the Chalanbeel areas and eat snail, insects and fishes. But, during the dry season, extra food is needed to supply for the ducks.
The duck farm owners then kept their ducks inside the pen because paddy and other crops are grown during the dry season at the beds of the beel. Many duck farm owners are forced to sell ducks during the dry season because of scarcity and high cost of food.
Asia of Naluakandi village informed, usually no disease attacks the ducks but if any one of the duck is attacked with diseases, it spread rapidly among other ducks killing all the ducks like an epidemic.
She informed, there is no drug of such an epidemic. Though the veterinarians prescribed an early immunisation for the ducks, it does not always work, complained Asia. Shahida of Debipur village informed, hundreds of poor people of Chalanbeel villages are being interested in rearing ducks as a means of their earning.
But, she said, the people are afraid, in the near future, no snail and oyster will remain left for the ducks due to indiscriminate collection of those by a section of people for preparing lime, poultry feed and fish feed.
She demanded government patronisation for the duck farmers to meet the increasing demand for animal protein of the people.
