Veterinary Care That Empowers Women in Rural India
- Jun 1
- 5 min read
In marginalized communities across rural India, families measure economic security in liters. For years, Chandra Patel calculated this math daily. She owns five water buffalo and four goats. Her husband works at the local hospital. However, Chandra’s animals drive the household's economic engine.
Despite her hard work and multiple animals, Chandra's livestock produced barely enough milk to feed her three young sons. There wasn’t enough milk to pay for school fees, clothing, or housing for the whole family. This deficit forced a heartbreaking choice. Chandra sent her youngest son, age three, to live with his grandmother in a neighboring village. She simply could not afford to feed him at home.
Intestinal worms and external ticks cause this misery.
The Protein Imperative
In villages like Lachhapur, parasites silently drain the financial and nutritional potential of vulnerable families. India produces the most milk globally. Yet, a stark paradox persists: high production coexists with widespread protein deficiency.
According to the National Family Health Survey (NFHS-5), chronic undernutrition stunts nearly 35% of Indian children under five. In rural communities, animal-source proteins offer the most accessible source of high-quality nutrition. This is especially true for Dalit communities. For many families, the milk from a single water buffalo provides the primary source of protein for their children.
Tragically, parasites siphon off that nutrition source. To solve this, Helping India Together (HIT) launched a livestock care program in 2017. They partnered first with Kachhwa Christian Hospital, expanded to other partner hospitals, and then joined with Vetnet Foundation.
How It Started
Baltimore-based veterinarian Audrey Barker dreamed of working with rural women. She formed a nonprofit and spent a few frustrating years trying to gain traction on an issue that seemed so obvious to see and obvious to solve. It was a passion she shared with HIT executive director Michael Atchison, one of her professors at the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine.
In 2017, Audrey joined HIT’s annual visit. At KCH, she finally found a national partner with a shared vision to serve farmers on society’s margins.
Audrey and the hospital's Community Health and Development team surveyed nearby villages that were representative of the 3 million people living in the district. The data revealed a crisis: approximately 80% of young calves and goats were severely underweight. Rough, long hair coats signaled heavy intestinal worm burdens.
"The data was stark," Audrey says. "We weren’t just seeing sick animals; we were seeing the economic engine of these families stalled. If a calf dies or is stunted, a family loses years of future income and a critical source of nutrition.”
The danger extends beyond livestock health. External parasites like ticks and mites carry zoonotic pathogens– diseases that jump from animals to humans. Where families live in close quarters with livestock, animal health dictates human health. Ticks transmit fatal diseases to both cattle and children.
The World Health Organization (WHO) and international veterinary groups report that zoonoses cause 2.4 billion cases of human illnesses and 2.2 million deaths annually. These cases flag overwhelmingly among poor livestock workers in low-income nations. In the Kachhwa district, local women confirmed this reality. Families suffered from the exact same skin lesions, parasitic loads, and persistent anemia as the livestock living in their courtyards.
The Economics of a Liter
A healthy water buffalo produces an average of 10 liters of milk per day. A parasitized buffalo produces less than half that amount. For Chandra's family, an extra half liter per animal separates subsistence from stability.
"If the cattle can produce more, Chandra can sell the surplus,” Audry explains. “But parasites limit production. After feeding her family, she has barely enough to sell, earning perhaps one dollar a day.”
This income loss sets a child's trajectory.
In rural India, men typically receive the wages from field labor, leaving women with little financial agency. However, women traditionally control the income from milk sales. This creates an economic lever. When livestock thrive, women gain financially.
And women reliably invest their earnings into their children's education and health. Therefore, deworming a buffalo represents a direct intervention in family economics.
Listening to the Experts on the Ground
When the veterinary team arrived in the first village, they expected to explain the problems of parasites. Instead, they met women who were already experts in the devastating effects. These women explicitly requested parasite medication. They knew animal health directly impacted child health.
Then came the physical challenge. Water buffalo and cows are massive, sensitive animals. Confronted by foreign vets and unfamiliar equipment, the livestock kicked and pulled away. The teams could not safely measure the animals or apply treatments.
Arshima Debi stepped in.
Arshima lives in Baraini village within an extended family ecosystem, collectively caring for 10 buffalo, 9 cows, and 18 goats. Arshima feeds, cleans, and handles these animals multiple times a day. The animals know her voice. They trust her touch.
Arshima took charge. The veterinary team quickly taught her to use a weight tape to calculate the animal's mass and determine the dose of topical medicine. With her children watching, Arshima soothed the nervous animals. She applied the medicine to six buffalo and four cows without incident.
"From day one, we saw beneficiaries became practitioners," said HIT executive director Michael Atchison. "We knew then that this program would be sustainable."
The Ripple Effect
This localized approach yielded immediate results. A pilot project targeted 300 animals across three villages. Instead, local women helped the team treat 770 animals across eight villages.
For Munni Yadav, a resourceful farmer in Kachhwa Dih village, this intervention changed her life’s path. Munni is a subsistence farmer. She grows food on a tiny plot of land to feed her family. Her only cash income comes from selling milk from her three buffalo. Before the program, her infected buffalo yielded just 3 liters of milk a day combined– a stark contrast with the 10 liters of a healthy, parasite-free buffalo.
Munni sold her meager milk supply at the local market for about $1.50. Not enough to pay for school books or fees, and forced into the cycle of working as a day laborer.
Clear of parasites, Munni’s buffalo started producing a steady surplus. She plans to save this income to purchase a fourth buffalo, expand her micro-dairy, and fund a once-impossible dream: college tuition for her children.
With results like that…
We had to find a way to scale the solution. Livestock care was so obviously effective, so quick to transform family situations, that Audrey’s passion quickly became HIT's fourth core pillar. Other partner hospitals joined. The organization faced a new challenge: how to scale a program with such massive economic and health benefits.
The solution emerged in partnership.
Delhi-based Vetnet Foundation started in 2019 with the vision of providing veterinary training and mobile livestock camps to isolated rural communities. We could see that Vetnet was the type of partner we could rely on for livestock care the way our hospitals are meaningful and trusted partners for health care. Of course we introduced them to each other.
With partner hospitals as a base, Netnet and community health staff work to strengthen human and animal health that builds lives and livelihoods.
Breaking the Cycle
The stories of Chandra, Arshima, and Munni echo the realities of millions of rural Indian households. The World Bank estimates that livestock contributes nearly 4% to India's GDP. Livestock also generates over 25% of the income for small-scale farmers. Yet, preventable diseases routinely trap families in poverty.
HIT’s livestock care proves that simple, scalable interventions pave the path out of poverty. By curing the animal, the program protects the child, empowers the woman, and stabilizes the entire community.
Today, Chandra Patel watches her healthy herd and her three sons. The milk surplus brought her youngest boy back home.
By giving to HIT’s livestock care program, you provide the simple medical tools that protect public health, increase milk production, and unlock a family's financial independence.