Duck farming gains popularity in Rajshahi region

In the wake of gradually increasing nutritional demand and lucrative market price, commercial farming of ducks including gooses are gaining popularity day by day in Rajshahi region for the last couple of years.

Duck products such as eggs and meat have a great demand in the local markets. So, the duck farming business is being adjudged a great source of earning. Many farmers are making a high profit from their duck farming businesses.

The business has also become a stable employment source. Young unemployed educated people are joining this business making their own employment source. Hundreds of poor and marginal families have become economically solvent by rearing ducks.

There are around 2,000 duck farms in Rajshahi division comprising eight districts and the farming has become more profitable and sustainable as beels and wetlands are situated abundantly there, said Abdul Awal, divisional deputy director of the Department of Animal Resources.

He said many people reared ducks both commercially and on a small scale for meat or egg production purposes. Even, they raised some ducks on their own backyard with other birds or animals.

Mahtab Ali, a rural jobless person who completed graduation and vainly tried to get a job, is presently owner of a duck farm and now able to support his family properly. He lives in Talanda village of Tanore upazila.

He told the news agency that even five years ago, the income of his father, a poor farmer, was not enough to meet even the basic needs of their family.

However, he was committed to doing something positive to change the lot of his family. Therefore, he took a short training course from Rajshahi Youth Development Training Centre in 2008, and set up the duck farm adjacent to his house.

Some of those poor fishing families took loans from NGOs and started duck farming at their houses. The Department of Animal Resources also came forward to assist them by supplying improved, hybrid variety of ducklings.

Prof Jalal Uddin Sarder of the Department of Animal Husbandry and Veterinary Science at Rajshahi University said women, particularly the housewives, were mostly involved in rearing ducks of indigenous species.

Ducks need less expensive, simple and non-elaborate housing facilities resulting in very low expenses in setting up commercial duck farming businesses.

They are very hardy bird and they need less care or management. They can adapt to almost all types of environmental condition.