September 2026
A community-managed Goat Bank in tribal Madhya Pradesh is strengthening climate-resilient livelihoods through women’s leadership, improved goat sheds, Azolla-based feed, scientific animal care and a revolving asset-sharing system. Managed through a women-led FPO, the initiative has reduced mortality and veterinary costs, increased goat sales and household incomes, while building women’s confidence, leadership and collective resilience.
For generations, goat rearing has been an inseparable part of life for Gond tribal families in Mandla district. With agriculture largely dependent on a single monsoon crop, goats provide a source of income throughout the year. Families sell them to buy seeds, pay school fees, meet medical expenses, cover marriages and cope with emergencies, serving as poor man’s ATM.
Yet the livelihood itself has been under pressure. Most households own only five to ten goats. Women are mainly responsible for almost every aspect of goat management from taking animals out for grazing, collecting fodder, feeding kids, cleaning sheds and caring for sick animals. Despite this central role, many women have had limited access to training, animal health services and improved management practices.
Climate variability has made their work even harder. The forests that once supplied abundant grazing have gradually become degraded. Rainfall patterns have become unpredictable, with prolonged dry spells followed by intense rainfall. During summer, green fodder almost disappears, while during the monsoon, goats are often exposed to damp and unhygienic conditions. Most goats kept either inside family houses or under temporary shelters made of wooden poles and crop residues, create favorable conditions for parasites and infectious diseases during heavy rainfall periods. Kid mortality increases, veterinary costs rise, and families lose valuable assets.
In this background, Udyogini, a grassroots organization started working with the tribal communities in the region. Recognizing the fact sustainable livestock development requires strong community institutions rather than one-time asset distribution, Udyogini took a novel approach – the Community Managed Goat Bank approach, which combines scientific household health management, women's leadership and community-level ownership.
Building Community managed Institutions
- Goat Bank
The term "goat bank" is a community-owned revolving fund managed by community-level institutions dedicated exclusively to tribal women.
The Goat Bank initiative was started in 2024 in Narayanganj Block, covering 31 forest-based cluster villages under the broader project intervention.
Under the Goat Bank, interested women are selected through community discussions. The emphasis is not only on economic need but also on their willingness to adopt improved goat-rearing practices, participate in training programmes, and contribute to a collective community initiative.
Unlike conventional livestock distribution programmes, the Goat Bank follows a simple principle:
“Every goat deserves a scientific Shed before entering a household”. Women who already had suitable goat shelters receive quality breeding goats through the programme. Families without proper housing first receive support to construct a low-cost bamboo-based, climate-resilient raised goat shed. Only after the shelter is completed are goats introduced.
The revolving mechanism Each household understands that the support received is not a personal gift but a community investment. Once the goat enterprise is established, the woman contributes back to the Goat Bank by returning the same number of healthy offspring or repaying its agreed monetary value to the Farmer Producer Organization (FPO). The returned asset is then provided to another deserving tribal woman in the next cycle. This revolving mechanism transforms the Goat Bank into a growing community resource, where one woman's success creates an opportunity for another family. |
Under the initial model, each selected woman farmer received four female goats and one buck goat to establish and strengthen her goat-rearing unit. The model was designed around a revolving approach, where the offspring generated from the initial goats are shared with other women farmers, allowing the benefits to reach more households over time.
The community-managed Goat Bank has been established in 17 villages, initially reaching 100 women farmers.
So far, 70 women farmers have shared offspring/ Monetary Value with other community members, indicating that the revolving mechanism is gradually expanding the reach of the Goat Bank beyond the original beneficiaries. This process has helped the model move from a one-time asset distribution approach towards a community-based livestock asset-sharing system.
- The Farmer Producer Orgnisation
The Babaliya Mahila Pashupalan FPO emerged in 2024 as a step towards making the Goat Bank model more sustainable and community-owned. As the model developed, these women were gradually brought together under a formal FPO structure dedicated to livestock and allied activities. Over the last two years, the FPO has expanded its outreach from the initial 100 women to 421 women farmers.
At present, the FPO provides an institutional platform for knowledge transfer, capacity building, and financial support related to goat rearing. Over the last two years, 70 new households have been supported to establish improved goat sheds, including raised-platform sheds, while 1000 households have been engaged through capacity-building and training on improved goat-rearing practices, feed management, and livestock care; with this, 50 women farmers were supported on a pilot basis with Azolla cultivation to strengthen local feed availability and improve goat nutrition.
The Goat Bank's revolving fund is now managed by the FPO, including the receipt and management of funds and maintenance of financial records. The FPO manages the Goat Bank as a revolving community asset, ensuring transparency, accountability, and long-term sustainability. The FPO also maintains beneficiary registers and records of meetings and activities.
While the initial model focused on revolving goats and offspring among women farmers, the FPO is now expanding its outreach through complementary support for women-focused groups such as WEG, such as feed management, Azolla cultivation, improved goat sheds, and capacity building on scientific goat rearing. These interventions are helping households improve their goat-rearing practices even before they receive animals through the revolving mechanism. This creates a stronger foundation for the next cycle of the Goat Bank.
Udyogini currently facilitates the FPO as an institution, while gradually strengthening its capacity to independently manage the Goat Bank and provide services to its members. The long-term vision is to gradually shift the FPO's role beyond input and knowledge support towards market linkage and aggregation of goats and other livestock-related products. This transition is expected to strengthen the FPO's business potential and create a more sustainable, women-led livestock enterprise.
Specific Interventions
- Azolla as Feed
To address the fodder scarcity issue, low-cost Azolla beds were promoted at the household level. Each bed costs around Rs.300 and after inoculation, Azolla starts production within seven days. A well-maintained bed can produce around 5–7 kg of Azolla, providing a regular source of green feed during the summer. Around 5–6 goats can be supported with the feed produced from one Azolla unit, depending on the availability of other feed.
For these households, the main benefit is not necessarily saving money on purchased fodder, because they traditionally collect fodder from the forest or free-graze their livestock in the jungle. The bigger benefit is saving women's time, reducing the drudgery and life-threatening risk involved in fodder collection, especially during the scorching summer months.
- Climate-resilient raised shed
The raised goat shed has been one of the most important changes introduced through the Goat Bank model in the tribal communities. A simple, low-cost, and climate-resilient shed specifically for goats, was introduced. A typical shed measures around 10 × 8 feet and can accommodate approximately 5–6 goats, with the size adjustable according to the herd size.
The shed is designed using locally available materials, making it easier for households to construct and maintain. The shed platform made of bamboo/Wooden log is raised approximately 3–5 feet above the ground, helping protect goats from stagnant water and damp conditions during the rainy season and also save them from other predators such as Jackle, Dog. Bamboo or locally available materials can be used for the side walls to maintain airflow, while cement sheets protect from heavy rainfall and direct sunlight. Based on the current material rates, the estimated cost of these major materials is around Rs.3500 per shed.
The low cost shed represents a shift from traditional livestock keeping towards improved housing, hygiene and scientific goat management. It also provides women with a more manageable system for caring for goats during heavy rainfall, extreme weather and disease-prone periods.
- Knowledge as Input
Sustainable change required continuous learning. Many women had years of experience in rearing goats, but much of their knowledge had been inherited through tradition. Vaccination schedules, balanced feeding, deworming, scientific breeding, and disease prevention were relatively new concepts. Regular training programmes therefore became an integral part of the Goat Bank. FPO organized practical demonstrations within villages. Women learned how to identify common diseases, maintain vaccination calendars, prepare simple mineral mixtures, recognize heat symptoms, manage pregnant does, and provide special care to newborn kids.
Women who successfully adopted improved practices shared their experiences with neighboring farmers. Village meetings gradually evolved into learning platforms where challenges and solutions were discussed collectively. As confidence increased, many women who had once considered goat rearing as a secondary activity began viewing it as a viable enterprise capable of generating regular household income.
Outcomes
The introduction of simple, raised goat sheds helped reduce losses by keeping animals away from damp floors and contaminated water. Average mortality declined to 1.75 goats, even as the average herd size increased to 12.63 goats. As a result, mortality as a share of the herd came down to around 13.8%, making goat rearing a more secure livelihood asset.
Better housing, improved hygiene, and regular deworming helped reduce health-related expenses. Average annual veterinary and medicine expenses fell by 59.4%. Instead of spending heavily during disease outbreaks, households were able to focus more on simple preventive care and routine animal management.
Cultivating Azolla and producing feed closer to home reduced average daily foraging and feeding time from 5.27 hours down to 4.71 hours. This reduction eased daily physical workload, particularly for women, while delivering cleaner, consistent nutrition to support faster livestock growth.
As animal survival and growth improved, households were able to sell more goats, with average annual sales increasing from 1.41 to 3.77 goats per household. Improved animal weight and collective bargaining also helped increase the average sale price from Rs.2,430 to Rs.6,606 per goat, a 78% increase. Together, these changes increased annual household income from goat sales from Rs.36,041 to Rs.61,792, helping transform goat rearing from a small supplementary activity into a more meaningful source of household income and financial security
Perhaps the most significant transformation was not seen inside the goat sheds but within the women themselves. Many beneficiaries had rarely spoken in village meetings before joining the programme. Over time, they began discussing animal health, maintaining simple records, and helping neighbors solve management problems.
Knowledge spread from one household to another, strengthening the social fabric of the village. Women who were once recognized only as caretakers of livestock gradually emerged as decision-makers, trainers, and entrepreneurs within their communities. The Goat Bank had quietly achieved something much larger than improving goat production- it had strengthened women's confidence and leadership.
A model towards collective prosperity
The approach has resulted in building a sustainable system in which livestock assets, knowledge, and resources continue to circulate within the community. By combining climate-resilient housing, locally produced nutritious feed, continuous capacity building, and collective institutional support, the Goat Bank demonstrated that improving livelihoods is not about a single technology. It is about connecting several small innovations into one integrated system that enables families to adapt, prosper, and build resilience together. The model is gradually moving from simply transferring goats to building capable goat-rearing households.
The community institution is built on trust, shared responsibility and women's leadership. The Goat Bank keeps expanding through community participation. Every returned goat becomes the foundation of another family's livelihood. Women proudly describe themselves not as beneficiaries but as custodians of the Goat Bank. The system has strengthened trust within villages and reinforced the belief that development is most sustainable when communities invest in one another.
The initiative has shown that sustainable livelihoods are created not through isolated interventions but through connected solutions. For the tribal communities of Mandla, the "Poor Man's ATM" has become much more than an emergency source of cash. It has become a pathway towards dignity, resilience, environmental sustainability, and collective prosperity.
| Box 1: Bhuri Bai's story: From a vulnerable herd to a stronger livelihood Bhuri Bai, a 35-year-old woman from Babaliya village in Mandla district's Narayanganj block, had raised goats for years. Like many women in her village, she depended on a small herd as an important household asset. But the animals had no proper shed and remained exposed to sun, rain and disease. Limited awareness of scientific goat rearing, lack of resources for infrastructure and poor access to improved feed created a cycle in which the animals she depended on remained vulnerable. Through the Goat Bank intervention, Bhuri Bai adopted a set of simple but connected changes. A low-cost raised goat shed provided protection from harsh weather and damp conditions. Feed trays helped keep feed clean and reduced wastage. She also began cultivating Azolla near her home as a supplementary feed, reducing the need to travel long distances in search of fodder. Hands-on training helped her improve day-to-day herd management. The changes were visible in the health and growth of her goats. Bhuri Bai was able to sell three goats for ₹25,000, demonstrating how improved housing, feeding and management could translate into better returns. For a woman with limited livelihood resources, the improvement was significant not simply because of the income, but because goat rearing had become a more secure and manageable household asset. |
Srijan Samanta
MEL, Madhya Pradesh Udyogini Email: srijansamanta@udyogini.org
