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This study evaluates the potential of backyard poultry farming with improved Vanaraja chicken variety for income generation of 66 rural women farmers of weaker sections in Uttarakhand hills. Results indicate that backyard poultry farming with improved Vanaraja variety could be a promising option for sustainable livelihood enhancement of the rural women, those otherwise have very limited income-generating opportunities in other challenging sectors. The performance of Vanaraja birds was evaluated by collecting data on various growth traits like body weight (2.2 to 3.4 kg/bird at 40 weeks), age at first egg laying (235–238 days), total egg production (98–120 eggs/bird), mortality (mean=17%) and reasons of mortality, income generation through sale of eggs and birds, etc. The benefit-cost (B:C) ratio was computed as 2.13. The higher B:C ratio and higher net return indicate that backyard poultry farming with Vanaraja is much more profitable in this region. A practical implication of this study was an increased annual average income of 66 women farmers by 27–61% over their income from other farm produce within 1 year that has great relevance in terms of increased purchase power and confidence building among rural poor to take up backyard poultry farming at a still larger scale. However, constraints and challenges such as high mortality in early stage (17%), high price of chick feed (57% of the total cost incurred in a farming cycle of 72 weeks), limited availability of improved DOCs, adequate medicare and other technical support need to be addressed to make backyard poultry more profitable and sustainable. Further research may address: (i) minimisation of input cost in terms of feed purchased from the market and use of local feed and open foraging to minimise the feed purchased from distant market, (iii) hygiene and health concerns of the chick birds and (iii) late maturity of the birds and low duration of egg laying as compared to other hilly states of India such as Sikkim. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the finding of pollination effects of honey bees (Apis cerana) on productivity outcomes of the three crops of the Himalayan agro-ecosystem: mustard (Brassica campestris), buckwheat (Fagopyrum esculentum) and plum (Prunus domestica). We used pollination exclusion on flowers of target crops to assess the contribution of pollinators on crop yield. The effect of pollination on various yield parameters under different treatments viz. Open pollination (OP) with supplementation of beehives and Control pollination (CP, pollinator exclusion) were quantified. The CP treatment negatively impacted crop yield variables in all the target crops contrary to the OP, where yield variables were significantly higher in all the target crops. Total yield of mustard increased by 27% (179 vs. 227 kg/ha), buckwheat by 73% (309 vs. 1141 kg/ha) and plum by 64% (0.92 vs. 2.52 kg fruits /branch) in OP than the CP. This is mainly due to higher pollinator density in the OP and supplementation of A. cerana bee hive. The maximum pollinator species diversity was recorded in buckwheat (16 spp.) followed by mustard (15 spp.) and plum (13 spp.). In all the target crops, honey bee (A. cerana) emerged as the most abundant visitor, with mean density of 24.38±0.92 in mustard, 18.56±2.00 in buckwheat and 39.45±1.45 in plum. The findings indicate that pollinators, especially honey bees can be suitably integrated with agro-ecosystems of this region for effective pollination management and to maximize the crop yield. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]