How introduction of dairy goat production affects smallholder farmers

 How introduction of dairy goat production affects smallholder farmers – A case study of an agricultural development project in Karatu district, Tanzania Majbrit Terkelsen Aarhus University Master’s Degree Programme: Agrobiology November 2015 How introduction of dairy goat production affects smallholder farmers – A case study of an agricultural devel-­‐‑
opment project in Karatu district, Tanzania By Majbrit Terkelsen Student number: 20094352 Master’s degree programme: Agrobiology Department: Agroecology ECTS: 60 points Date: 1. November 2015 Supervisors: Chris Kjeldsen Senior Researcher Department of Agroecology Aarhus University Mette Vaarst Senior Researcher Department of Animal Science Aarhus University Jens M. Vesterager Programme Manager Rockwool Foundation 2 Acknowledgement This study has been carried out from the 1 November 2014 to 1. November 2015 with highly valuable support from Rockwool Foundation. The staff gave me full access to material, office and personal knowledge as well as contacts in the study area in Tanzania. The foundation has provided economically support for the travel expanses during the data conduction, which I greatly appreciate. I will like to give great thanks to Project Manager in Rockwool Foundation, Jens Vesterager who has provided essential academic sparring, supervising and support throughout the process of conducting this thesis. Without all the support from Rockwool foundation the thesis would not have been manageable. I will like to thank Dominick Ringo for welcoming me to Tanzania and to make me feel warmly welcome and providing great support at the RECODA office. Each and everyone connected to the RECODA office I thank for making me feel home away form home, enabling me to focus on the data collection. I will like to give a special thanks to all the participating farmers allowing me to collect personal information about their families and goat production. Also I will like to express great appreciation of all the help and support from my interpreter Kastuli Daudi. I will like to thank my supervisors Chris Kjeldsen and Mette Vaarst for believing in my choice of subject and your wisely guidance when I was lost in my own thoughts. 3 Abbreviations ADP: Agriculture Development Project AFK: Age at First Kidding CB: Capacity building EO: Extension Officer FARM-­‐‑Africa: Food and Agricultural Research Management FAO: Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations FS: Food security GoT: Government of Tanzania HH: Household HPI: Heifer Programme International KATOBRA: Karatu-­‐‑Toggenburg Breeding Association KI: Kidding Interval NGO: Non-­‐‑Governmental Organization OECD: Organisation for Economic Co-­‐‑operation and Development PRS: Poverty Reducing Strategy Ripat: Rural Initiatives for Participatory Agricultural Transformation SEA goat: Small East African goat SC: Solidarity-­‐‑chain TOBRA: Toggenburg Breeding Association UN: United Nations VSLA: Village Saving and Loan Associations 4 5 Summary About one in nine people on earth do not have enough food to lead a health ac-­‐‑
tive life and most of these people are living in developing countries. Around half of the world’s hungry people belong to smallholder farming communities relying on subsistence farming (WFP, 2015). This population category is vulnerable and has low degree of food security. High malnutrition rates are observed in coun-­‐‑
tries with high population of poor people. 34 percentage of Tanzania’s popula-­‐‑
tion is living in poverty in terms of not meeting basic needs (MAFAP, 2013). Focus on enhancing food security will expectedly improve nutrition since nutri-­‐‑
tion is incorporated in food security. Milk contains high-­‐‑quality protein (Muelhoff et al. 2013) and milk from goats are recommended compared to cattle because minerals are easier absorbed from goat milk and smaller fat globules makes goat milk easier digestible (Peacock, 1996). Keeping dairy goats will enhance families’ abilities to access milk. In addi-­‐‑
tion to the nutrition advantages dairy goats are reliable producers in bad time, fast breeders and have lower nutritional requirements compared with cattle (Es-­‐‑
careno et al. 2013). Low causal relation between implementing of agriculture de-­‐‑
velopment projects (ADP) and better nutrition has been observed despite great potential of ADPs (Rual & Alderman, 2013). Community-­‐‑based projects with in-­‐‑
tegration of dairy goats have been proved to be rather effective on establishing or enhancing food security (Peacock, 2008; Amati & Parkins, 2011). In this thesis it is investigated how introduction of dairy goats can affect food se-­‐‑
curity of the farmer families by building op appropriate capacities. The objective is to identify how dairy goats contribute to farmer families’ food security, and the role of capacity building emerging from this process. Specifically, this is investi-­‐‑
gated by a case study of dairy goats introduced by an agricultural development project called Ripat. The research is done within an ADP called Ripat, which aims at enhancing food security through building up capacities in a community-­‐‑based project. The data collected for this research are consisting of both quantitative and qualitative in-­‐‑
terviews of dairy goat farmers and other relevant participants who were all part of the project when it was on-­‐‑going. Food security The families were on average consisting of eight people and this family would mainly only have one doe to produce milk. The doe would produce milk for four months during a year, which means that the availability of milk for the family is reduced to one-­‐‑third of a year. The daily production of milk per doe was wide-­‐‑
ranging and the estimated average milk yield on 1.3 litres is likely to be an esti-­‐‑
mate within the upper end of the scale. Farmers have full access to milk pro-­‐‑
duced by their goat(s) because all milk is consumed within the HH. The distribu-­‐‑
tion of milk between HH members seems very even, and if any members are fa-­‐‑
voured it will be young children. The stability of the goat production is inconclu-­‐‑
sive because milk is available in a limited period of time during the year, and there seem to be no structure in farmers’ management emphasizing goats to 6 produce milk when milk is most needed in terms of utilization quality – in hun-­‐‑
ger season. At the same time farmers are valuing dairy goats high on the farm and farmers wanted to continuing to keep dairy goats and they wanted to ex-­‐‑
pand their production to access more milk and to sell additional offspring. Capacity building In general a wider adaptation of all management technologies provided by Ripat was limited among farmers. They expressed difficulties in purchasing enough feed for their goats as a main reason to why goats were not kept within the rec-­‐‑
ommended management. Not all farmers within the group solidarity chains were accessing goats when research was conducted. The farmers did not take action from all knowledge provided and farmers’ selects in knowledge in order to rele-­‐‑
vance of on their own farm. When farmers find feeding goats as a challenge the knowledge on improved fodder production can seem irrelevant to the farmer. With social relation the individual goat farmers are embedded in different types of social networks, which all are liked to the goat farmer. During the project pe-­‐‑
riod, the project established strong links with the farmers. The link to other pro-­‐‑
ject farmers was largely regarding other activities than goats. The link was main-­‐‑
tained to goat farmers in order to obtain desired breeding material. The links with local EO was supposed to play a similar role in the future as during the pro-­‐‑
ject. For a number of reasons, it can be argued that the links between farmers and EO are relatively weak. In contrast, the other relations identified can be de-­‐‑
scribed as ‘strong’ links. This includes links to HH, the village community and to the overall project group. By maintaining strong links to the group the future re-­‐‑
production of goats is secured but because of the rather uncontrolled breeding the potential is expected to decrease if it continues the same way. 7 Table of Contents Acknowledgement Abbreviations Summary 1 INTRODUCTION 10 2 OBJECTIVE 11 2.1 RESEARCH QUESTIONS 11 3 BACKGROUND 12 3.1 TANZANIA 3.2 HISTORY OF GOATS 3.3 GOATS IN AGRICULTURAL DEVELOPMENT PROJECTS 3.4 PERFORMANCE OF DAIRY GOATS IN TROPIC CLIMATE 3.4.1 LACTATION PERFORMANCE 3.4.2 REPRODUCTION PERFORMANCE 3.4.3 ROBUSTNESS 12 13 15 17 17 20 22 4 CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK 25 4.1 FOOD SECURITY 4.2 CAPACITY BUILDING 25 29 5 THE RIPAT PROJECT 31 5.1 PROJECT APPROACH 5.2 THEORY 5.3 THE PRACTICAL IMPLEMENTATION OF THE PROJECT 31 32 36 6 METHODS AND MATERIAL 37 6.1 LOCATION AND RIPAT PROJECT 6.1.1 KARATU DISTRICT 6.1.2 RIPAT 3 6.1.3 EXOTIC DAIRY GOATS 6.1.4 SOLIDARITY CHAIN 6.2 METHODOLOGY 6.2.1 DATA COLLECTION 6.2.2 SELECTION OF INTERVIEWEES 6.2.3 CONDUCTION OF THE INTERVIEW 6.2.4 LANGUAGE AND TRANSLATION 37 37 38 38 39 39 39 40 41 42 7 RESULTS 43 7.1 FARMERS AND THEIR PRODUCTION 1.1.1 RIPAT TECHNOLOGIES 7.2 FOOD SECURITY 7.2.1 AVAILABILITY 7.2.2 ACCESS 7.2.3 STABILITY 7.3 CAPACITY BUILDING 7.3.1 GROUP FACILITATOR 43 47 48 48 60 61 62 63 8 7.3.2 7.3.3 7.3.4 7.3.5 HOUSEHOLD GROUP COMMUNITY EXTENSION OFFICER 64 65 67 68 8 DISCUSSION 69 8.1 8.2 8.3 8.4 69 72 76 80 THE INFLUENCE OF THE GOATS ON FAMILY FOOD SECURITY FOCUSED GOAT PRODUCTION CAPACITY BUILDING CAPACITIES LEADING TO INCREASED FOOD SECURITY 9 CONCLUSION 82 10 REFERENCE 84 11 APPENDIX 91 9 1 Introduction About one in nine people on earth do not have enough food to lead a health ac-­‐‑
tive life and most of these people are living in developing countries. The Sub-­‐‑
Saharan African is the region in the world with highest prevalence of hunger, where one in four people are undernourished (WFP, 2015). A global acknowl-­‐‑
edgement of wanting to continue to change this statistics to the better is found in UN’s newly formed Sustainable Development Goals (UN, 2015), where Goal 2 “Zero Hunger” is emphasising improved nutrition and food security. Undernutri-­‐‑
tion has many underlying determinants like, poverty, low degree of food securi-­‐‑
ty, and scarcity of access to adequate care resources (Ruel & Alderman 2013). Any attempts on improving nutritious status of humans therefor have to accept importance of all underlying factors in order to gain success. Around half of the world’s hungry people belong to smallholder farming com-­‐‑
munities relying on subsistence farming (WFP, 2015). Development projects tar-­‐‑
geting agriculture on smallholder level will hence reach a relevant population group. However, agricultural development projects (ADP) are found to have an inconclusive nutritional effect (Ruel & Alderman 2013). A main reason to this disconnection can be found in the goals of the projects, most of the ADPs are not designed to improve nutrition. Low degree of food security was a determinant to undernutrition hence focus on enhancing this will expectedly improve nutrition. High malnutrition rates are observed in countries with high population of poor people. 34 percentage of Tanzania’s population is living in poverty in terms of not meeting basic needs (MAFAP, 2013) and the country ranks 98 of 109 coun-­‐‑
tries on the Global Food Security Index (FSI, 2015). Malnutrition is pointed out as a major challenge for Tanzania and is primary related to protein-­‐‑energy defi-­‐‑
ciency, iron-­‐‑deficiency anaemia, iodine-­‐‑deficiency disorders and vitamin A defi-­‐‑
ciency (MAFAP, 2013). In the northern region of Tanzania, where Karatu is placed malnutrition, illustrated by stunting, is a crucial challenge to food securi-­‐‑
ty. Every forth child under the age of five are stunted. A clear difference is seen between children living in rural and peri-­‐‑urban areas. The proportion of stunted children is five times higher in rural than peri-­‐‑urban areas in Karatu (EDI, 2005). The protein-­‐‑energy deficiency is a form of malnutrition and relates to inadequate calorie and/or protein intake. Food components specifically enhancing this chal-­‐‑
lenge will increase the general nutrition expectedly and will be relevant contrib-­‐‑
utors to food security. Milk contains high-­‐‑quality protein, defined as including all essential amino acids required for adequate human diet (Muelhoff et al. 2013). At the same time milk contains fat, which is high in energy, and several minerals and vitamins including iron and vitamin A (Peacock, 2008), which were also found as deficiency challenges faced by Tanzanian people. When people are living in poverty, such as majority of smallholder farmers in Tanzania, their resources for purchasing milk from markets are limited due to lack of economy and/or access to markets (Torero, 2011). Keeping dairy live-­‐‑
stock on their farm will thereby enhance their abilities to access milk. Dairy goats are argued to be preferred rather than dairy cattle for multiple reasons: 10 goats are reliable producers in bad time, fast breeders, lower nutritional re-­‐‑
quirements (Escareno et al. 2013), minerals are easier absorbed from goat milk and smaller fat globules makes goat milk easier digestible, which is highly rele-­‐‑
vant to children and the sick (Peacock, 1996). The problem of low causal relation between ADP and better nutrition despite their great potential (Rual & Alderman, 2013), calls for renewing the approach to ADP. Community-­‐‑based projects with integration of dairy goats have been proved to be rather effective on establishing or enhancing food security (Pea-­‐‑
cock, 2008; Amati & Parkins, 2011). As stated by Edelenbos, et al. (2011) “knowledge production takes place within interactive learning process, involving discussion and negotiation, and leading to common knowledge base which may fulfil scientific standards”. To obtain success from structuring social learning it demands administrative systems and social relevance and requires a transdisci-­‐‑
plinary understanding of roles, competences and skills (Walter et al. 2007). The question is, exactly how the process of establishing a community based ADP that introduce goats, is affecting the smallholder farmer. By understanding the mechanisms behind and the importance of both goats and the context in which they are introduced, it will bring a better understanding to how ADP actually leads to food security over time. The investigation of this objective is done through a case study of a completed ADP based on a rather new approach to ADP, called Ripat. This approach is community-­‐‑based by having its starting point in creating local farmer groups to which they provide various capacities such as knowledge, skills and technologies (Lilleør & Lund-­‐‑Sørensen, 2013). This approach has been proven to significantly increase food security among target people (Larsen & Lilleør, 2014). Dairy goats are one of several technologies in the “basket of options” availed to the farmers in a Ripat project (Vesterager et al. 2013) – options that work together for reduc-­‐‑
ing food and nutrition insecurity. The study will be based on interviews of farm-­‐‑
ers who participated in the project and adopted the technology of dairy goats. 2 Objective The objective of this master’s thesis is to identify how dairy goats contribute to farmer families’ food security, and the role of capacity building emerging from this process. Specifically, this is investigated by a case study of dairy goats intro-­‐‑
duced by an agricultural development project called Ripat. 2.1 Research questions 1. Does the introduction of dairy goats affect smallholder farmer families, and if yes how do dairy goats influence food security at household level? 2. Which capacities are built by the introduction of dairy goats, and how might that support food security of the farmer families? 11 3 Background This chapter provides an extended understanding of the place of this case, Tan-­‐‑
zania including the agricultural focus and political interest. Additionally, a histo-­‐‑
ry of how and why dairy goats became an agriculture production stock in Tanza-­‐‑
nia and the nutrition of goat milk related to human nutrition. It also summarise how goats are incorporated in agricultural development projects and last but not least there is an overview of dairy goat performance in tropic climates. 3.1 Tanzania Tanzania is a coastal country facing the Indian Ocean at the east coast of Africa. In 2013 the total human population was just above 47 million and the rural pop-­‐‑
ulation constituted 75 percentage of the total population (CountrySTAT, 2015). In 2007 34 percentage of the population was categorized as poor and approxi-­‐‑
mately 90 % of Tanzania’s poor people live in rural areas (MAFAP, 2013). Rural areas in Tanzania consist of mainly self-­‐‑employed subsistence smallholder farm-­‐‑
ers (URT, 2010). Subsistence smallholder farmers are mainly producing in an extensive produc-­‐‑
tion system with low input and low output. These systems are not specifically attached to markets and any products excess household consumption are sold on casual basis on local village markets (Torero, 2011). The largest percentage of goat production around the world is included in the extensive production system by subsistence farmers (Escareno et al. 2013). Goats in these systems are grazed freely and inputs are kept to the minimum. In these systems goats have an im-­‐‑
portant social role, besides the primary production (Dubeuf, 2005). An increas-­‐‑
ing population pressure has resulted in an increased pressure on land and free grazing on communal pastures (Peacock, 2005). This is emerging more intensive systems on keeping goats. Tethering or housing is being seen more and more as a result of decreased access to communal land. This results in an increased de-­‐‑
pendency on feeding and fodder production on farms. Smallholder farmers and landless people can keep goats and the increasing land pressure makes especial-­‐‑
ly dairy goats attractive because they can be handled on small areas of land (Fagerholm et al. 2012). Tanzania has a low degree of food security in terms of affordability, availability and quality and is ranked 98 of 109 countries on the Global Food Security Index (FSI, 2015). Malnutrition is one of the challenging results of low occurrence of food security, and is one of the recognized challenges of Tanzania (MAFAP, 2013). Stunting is a term of undernutrition over time and results in reduced growth rate. It is defined as when children have a low height than expected of the age (WHO, 2015). According to URT (2010) 44 percentages of children in Tanza-­‐‑
nia below the age of five was stunted. The government of Tanzania (GoT) initia-­‐‑
tives to reduce poverty including reducing malnutrition has resulted in a nation-­‐‑
al Poverty Reduction Strategy (PRS) (Ellis, 2003) which was originated form a common agreement by African leaders, know as the Maputo Agreement (African Union, 2003). Regarding agricultures role in reducing poverty the African lead-­‐‑
ers had agreed on increasing policy focus on agriculture and liberalization of markets. This should be done by providing technical and financial support to the 12 agricultural sector, as well as development of the private sector through agri-­‐‑
business (African Union, 2003). According to GoT the main challenge Tanzania’s farmers are facing is the ineffi-­‐‑
cient use of land (Wolter, 2008). The productivity of crops and livestock has po-­‐‑
tential to become more sufficient. Infrastructure is a challenge to distribution of the goods and commodities from the agriculture production. Few roads in poor condition and unreliable rail ways are some of the challenges, which as a con-­‐‑
crete result has made farmers living in the north or south of Tanzania prefer to export to neighbour countries in stead of the domestic markets (Wolter, 2008). If this infrastructure challenge is not solve together with the efficiency of produc-­‐‑
tion, it will not improve people’s access to any potential increase of the produc-­‐‑
tion. Despite GoT (on paper) focus on including agriculture in their PRS, lack of public expenditure on agricultural research and development is one of the main rea-­‐‑
sons for the country to rank low on the Global Food Security Index (FSI, 2015). This lack of economic support to agriculture development is observed all over the world. For two decades from the mid-­‐‑1980s there has been a dramatic de-­‐‑
cline in the proportion and the total amount of funds allocated to agriculture in official development assistance (OECD, 2010) but at the same time it is agreed by leading economist, that growth in agriculture is on average at least twice as ef-­‐‑
fective in reducing poverty as growth outside agriculture (WDR 2008). 3.2 History of goats Goats are wide spread and found in all regions of the world. The total number of goats (live animals) in 2013 was 975.8 million (FAOSTAT, 2015). The reason for dissemination across the world is due to goat’s great adaptability to varying en-­‐‑
vironments. The majority of goats are observed in Asia and Africa, which also are homes to many poor people. Goats are appealing to poor people because of their high turnover in reproduction and small size, they are cheap to purchase, relia-­‐‑
ble producers in bad times, lower nutritional requirements and perhaps mostly important goats do not compete with humans for food (Mtenga et al. 2002; Aziz, 2010; Escareno et al. (2013). Since 1990 an increase in number of goats is ob-­‐‑
served. The increase in number of goats per year has been between 1 to 4 % and the total number of goats in the world has increased with 166 % from 1990 (589.2 million) to 2013. During the same period, the number of cattle has in-­‐‑
creased by 5 % per year and sheep has decreased by 10 % (Aziz, 2010). Based on the statistics, goats emerge as a major livestock species. Due to the already men-­‐‑
tioned advantages of keeping goats they become appealing to especially poor subsistence farmers. Since 1999 the total stock of goats have outnumbered cattle, and by 2013 the number of goat and cattle in Africa was 348 and 305 million animals respectively (FAOSTAT, 2015). The number of dairy goats in Africa was in 2010 61.9 million, which produced 60.6 million liters of milk per year. Goats in Africa are kept for many reasons, to produce meat, milk, skins, manure and for social reasons. Dairy goats are kept mainly to improve nutrition, such as protein and energy intake, of household members (Devendra & Liang, 2013). Dairy goats are socially consid-­‐‑
13 ered the poor mans cow (Aziz, 2010). Goats are cheaper than cows to purchase and they only produces enough milk for the household to consume, whereas cows produce additional milk for selling on the market. Goat milk only accounts for a fraction of the total milk production, which is dominated by dairy cattle. When looking at where most goat milk is produced around the world, developing countries accounts for the majority of the total production. The amount of milk produced per doe is substantially lower for does in developing countries com-­‐‑
pared with dairy goats in Europe. Observations done by Aziz (2010) found that milk produced per milking doe in Somalia and France was 59.7 and 703.8 kg re-­‐‑
spectively. Even though the milk production per doe is lower in developing coun-­‐‑
tries in total most goat milk is produced in developing countries for HH con-­‐‑
sumption. Less than 5 % of the total milk produced by goats is sold on markets (Lou, 2009). In Tanzania the total number of goats are 16 million (FAOSTAT, 2015) and in 2010 the government of Tanzania estimated the number of dairy goats to be 40.000 (MLFD, 2010). Goats are found in all regions of the country and Tanzania is among the five most important countries in East Africa regarding goat popula-­‐‑
tion (Escareno 2013). According to Mtenga et al. (2002) the highest population of goats are found in western regions. The highest percentage of households keeping goats is found in Arusha region, where 59,3% of the households kept goats in 2007/2008 (Schnitzer & Azzarri 2014). Regarding dairy goats NBS (2012) estimated that more than 60 % of dairy goats are populated in Northern regions (including Arusha region) of Tanzania. Dairy goats are kept by various categories of people: landowners, landless peo-­‐‑
ple, pastoralists, agro-­‐‑pastoralists and farmers engaged in mixed farming (Devendra, 2007; Chenyambuga & Lekule, 2014). The production systems of which dairy goats are kept can be categorized as: pastoral, extensive agro-­‐‑
pastoralism, semi-­‐‑intensive and intensive (Mtenga et al. 2002). The largest per-­‐‑
centage of goat production around the world is classified as extensive (Escareno et al. 2013). Subsistence smallholder farmers accounts for most of the extensive production. A study conducted by Chenyambuga & Lekule (2014) was interview-­‐‑
ing goat farmers about reasons for having goats and breeds preferred. They found that the main factors for farmers choice of breed was availability in local area and adaptation to environmental conditions. This study found that the in-­‐‑
digenous breed Small East African (SEA) was preferred among farmers. Because of the malnutrition challenges in Tanzania, as in many other African countries, the government increased focus on importance of consuming milk for nutritious purpose. In 1987 the annual consumption of milk per capita in Tanza-­‐‑
nia was 15 liters (MALD, 1987). Hereafter milk consumption was included in The National Food Strategy plan, which was targeting 30 liters of milk for annual consumption per capita by year 2000 (Mtenga & Kifaru, 1992). This raised atten-­‐‑
tion to producing milk from other milk-­‐‑producing livestock than cattle hence the potential of producing milk for goats was established. SEA breed is known to have low production potential in terms of low kidding interval, extended age at first kidding, small mature size, small carcass weight, longer age at slaughter and low milk production (Chenyambuga & Lekule, 2014). Already in the early 1960s 14 exotic breeds were imported to improve the productivity of SEA. To increase the milk production, dairy goat breeds from temperate climate in Europe, such as Saanen, Alpine, Angolo-­‐‑Nubian and Toggenburg were imported. In 1988 the ag-­‐‑
riculture university of Tanzania (Sokoine University of Agriculture) imported the dairy breed Norwegian in order to encourage milk production enterprises among smallholder farmers (Eik et al. 2008). When introducing purebred certain challenges followed such as lack of adaptability and resistance to various diseas-­‐‑
es and parasites. The success of the research was lower than expected. The need for crossbreeding between the highly adapted SEA and the pure dairy goats with high potential of milk production became clear meet these challenges. According to Eik et al. (2008) the crossbred goats have higher milk production potential compared with indigenous but increasing the exotic blood level does not equal the expected higher production. Das and Sendalo (1991) found that from 75 % and higher of exotic (dairy goat) blood were less economical then keeping SEA selected for better production and well managed. 3.3 Goats in agricultural development projects This chapter gives an overview of the history of goats in agriculture development projects in order to identify successes and challenges already found through lit-­‐‑
erature on interventions involving goats and the general development of goat production. Goats are originally domesticated in southwest Asia but disseminated into Africa within few decades. They are found in all environments around the continent as well as in the rest of the world (Peacock, 2005). Goats are multifunctional ani-­‐‑
mals of paramount importance as they provide meat, milk, skins, hair, horns, bones and manure (Devendra & Liang, 2013). In developing countries goats play an essential role for the poorest people in rural areas as they contribute to with-­‐‑
stand a certain level of food and economic security. The majority of goat milk is home-­‐‑consumed and only few organized markets of goat commodities are found in developing countries (Dubeuf et al., 2004; Peacock, 2005; Devendra & Liand, 2013). Therefore, the main intent by keeping goats for the farmer is to maintain food security and preserve requirements for basic human nutrition (Devendra & Liang, 2013). The development of goat production has not evolved the same way as many oth-­‐‑
er farm animals (e.g. cows, poultry, pigs) across the world. Even though goats are found in all areas of the world and in all production systems there are many physical, economic, social and political constraints to developing goats (Peacock, 2005; Devendra & Liang, 2013). Due to exclusion from large parts of any orga-­‐‑
nized markets goats are not developed and specialized the same way as other farm animals (Dubeuf, 2005). This has set back the potential of goats as a farm animal and especially their potential to support poor people in leaving poverty behind (Peacock, 2005). Dubeuf et al. (2004) has done a global study on how to successfully upscale pro-­‐‑
jects in term of best practices and lessons learned involving goat production. The study concluded that the degree of success of goat projects is fairly low. A reason to failure is because few studies have been conducted about this area so project 15 leaders (often NGO’s) have few references to develop projects from. Dubeuf et al. (2004) concludes that a main problem by not having reliable references is that projects rarely have the initial expertise on the technical situation. The three overall commodities from goats are meat, milk and fibres and all of them require technical knowledge about goats and their environment e.g. animal breeding po-­‐‑
tential, animal health, animal forage resource and pasture, and how to produce quality products. LID (1999) found that donor-­‐‑funded livestock projects in gen-­‐‑
eral had performed poorly in terms of poverty-­‐‑reduction. It was found that main-­‐‑
ly wealthy livestock owners had benefitted from external funding. One of the reasons for this poor performance on poverty-­‐‑reduction was due to the absence of a poverty-­‐‑focus and specific targeting of the poor within the projects. Brad-­‐‑
stock et al. (2007) came to the conclusion that poor people are not able to adopt all technologies provided because of their low income hence, poverty. They can only adopt the simplest technologies and the outcome was lower compared to when wealthier farmers were provided with aid (Bradstock et al. 2007). Peacock (2005) suggests that the underlying reasons for the failings of livestock projects have to be found in the institutional framework within which livestock interven-­‐‑
tions operates. Both weak development and funding in public and private sectors are found as reasons to the poor performance of livestock interventions. The public sector includes infrastructure, research and extension service. Private sec-­‐‑
tor in this context includes markets and private enterprises. The research and extension organizations of the public sector are under-­‐‑funded, which reduce their quality and their impact on poverty reduction is limited (Peacock, 2005). Thus, development initiatives from donors have to empower goat keepers (live-­‐‑
stock keepers) to demand services by themselves, or enable them to supply their own services through individual service providers or their own farmer organiza-­‐‑
tions or groups (Peacock, 2005). Examples of Non Governmental Organisations (NGOs) with wide spread success over long periods of time, on providing goats to poor farmers are FARM-­‐‑Africa (Food and Agricultural Research Management) and HPI (Heifer Project Interna-­‐‑
tional). Both NGOs are dealing with multiple technologies for supporting poor farmers and they have different projects all over the areas of developing coun-­‐‑
tries. Common to all projects involving goats is that the projects are specifically focusing on providing goats as the main intervention. Both NGOs are basing their goat projects, and thereby the introduction and spreading of goats, on a Goat-­‐‑in-­‐‑
Trust approach. FARM-­‐‑Africa is focusing their goat projects on specific local are-­‐‑
as running a programme that enhance a well-­‐‑established base to a concrete community. FARM-­‐‑Africa’s goat development approach has overall resulted in significant and sustained economic, social and environmental benefits to both households and communities (Peacock 2008). HPI have a more wide spread fo-­‐‑
cus with the aim to provide goats to as many low-­‐‑income smallholders as possi-­‐‑
ble (de Haan, 2001). Both projects are basing the Goat-­‐‑In-­‐‑Trust approach on a passing-­‐‑on system similar to the term solidarity chain used in the Ripat project (see chapter 5) forming the basis for the data collection in the present thesis Some key lessons learned from the evaluation of Farm-­‐‑Africa projects (Peacock, 2008) were: 1. The failure to develop a sustainable supply of breeding stock and 2. A general lack of information on how exotic breeds have affected the disease 16 pressure in local areas and how the breeding bucks are replaced after ended pro-­‐‑
ject. From an evaluation of HPI (de Haan, 2001) some challenges were found in working with existing groups, namely that the people who originally forms the groups were more in control of the resources hence control over the goats and that their enhanced social capital in some cases were used in a negative way. It was also found that some farmers only participated to purchase a goat and did not want to commit to the social learning processes of sharing knowledge and supporting each other in the groups. The lessons learned from earlier projects are valuable information to anyone who will create future projects including dairy goats. Literature as this is scare regarding dairy goats, which thereby makes it more challenging in creating a more sufficient and sustainable project in the future. 3.4 Performance of dairy goats in tropic climate In this section the results or outcomes found in literature from dairy goats in tropic or dry areas, mainly developing countries, are discussed. The results (per-­‐‑
formance) of dairy goats are reproduction, milk production (lactation) and ro-­‐‑
bustness. These three results are influenced by several factors, such as feeding, breeding/selection, housing and water. The three result parameters and the in-­‐‑
fluencing factors are described in this section. 3.4.1 Lactation performance The milk production, hence the actual amount of milk produced during lactation period, is affected by several factors. Some main factors are breed, litter size, nu-­‐‑
trition level and health during pregnancy, season of kidding, feed availability and other stresses from the environment (Mellado et al., 2006). The lactation per-­‐‑
formance is made op of three main parameters. Lactation yield (output), lacta-­‐‑
tion length and dry period. Together, the performance of these parameters com-­‐‑
poses lactation performance. Lactation yield Milk yields depends on the breed. It is widely accepted that temperate goat breeds produce more milk than tropical breeds (Güney et al., 2006; Norris et al., 2011). The lower milk yield in tropic breeds is due to their lower genetic materi-­‐‑
al for milk production, as well as for their coping ability in harsh environment as to heat stress and diseases. The composition of the milk is also different between temperate and tropical breeds. Tropic breeds tend to have higher fat and protein contents, which primarily is connected the lower yields in tropic breeds (Abd et al., 2005). Regarding fat and protein content differentiation is also seen between early and late lactation. Protein and fat content is higher in early lactation and drops together with peak of the milk yield and continue to be low until the end of the lactation where it increases again (Hui, 2007). Parity is another factor influencing milk yield. During the first parity milk pro-­‐‑
duction is low and as parity increases from first to third milk yield increases as well. The rate of which milk yield increases is slower from third parity to fifth (Mareta et al., 2014). Goats are very persistent milkers and they reach their peak milk yield later than cattle. Goats reach peak during second to third month (8th to 12th week) whereas cattle reach peak during first to second month (Sahlu & Goe-­‐‑
17 tsch, 1998). When does are in their first parity they are not mature and are still growing. This gives an energy competition between growth and milk production. During parities the doe matures and this competition is reduced (Bushara et al., 2011; Norris et al. 2011). Also the weight of the doe increases as well as its abil-­‐‑
ity to consume more feed, and hence increase its energy intake (Singh et al., 2009). Nutrition has great influence on this performance factor. The better nutrition, the greater milk yields. This also gives season differences in tropic areas where farmers rely on growing or collecting all their feed. In a study conducted by Zah-­‐‑
raddeen et al. (2007) milk yields of goats were found to be higher during the wet season than the dry season. This differentiation is most likely to be attributed to availability of good quality and quantity of feed during rain season and vice versa in dry season (Norris et al. 2011). Does are most likely to ovulate during late wet season, because of the better nutrition status at this point, hence the lactation is most likely to be performed during dry season (Mmbengwa et al., 2009). In Northern Tanzania the long rain season is from March to late May (FAOa, 2006) and the short rain season is in November. This means that does often will con-­‐‑
ceive in May and give birth in October, which means that lactation period peak around December and January during the dry season. Nutrition is the factor af-­‐‑
fecting milk yield the most besides the genetic potential given with conception. The genotype is fixed and nutrition as related to production system and is changeable. A shortage of feed during gestation affects the milk production as a carry over effect after kidding. The last fifty days of gestation nutritional status is crucial because majority of nutrition requirement during gestation lays in this last stage (Suhlu & Goetsch, 1998). Most growth of foetuses happens > 100 days after conception (150 days gestation of goats presumed). Mammary gland evolves and growths as well in the last stage of gestation, which combined with growth of foetuses creates a dramatic increase in nutrient requirement after 100 days of gestation (Suhlu & Goetsch, 1998). The genetic potential of milk yield varies between breeds as earlier mentioned, not only between temperate and tropic breeds but also within these categories. Temperate goat breeds are categorized in meat and dairy breeds. The dairy breeds can be introduced in tropic areas to increase the genetic potential of the dairy goats and hereby increasing the milk yield. The environment in tropic are-­‐‑
as are different and often more harsh than where the goats are originated in (temperate climate), as well as the management and production systems. The milk yields of goats with similar genetic potential are expected to be lower in tropic areas compared to temperate areas. Ahuya et al. (2009) observed a daily milk yield at 2.2 litre per day on Toggenburg goats managed in semi-­‐‑intensive system, which means a zero grazing practise where farmers grow fodder plants. In a study conducted by Jackson (2013) Toggenburg and Saanen goats were compared in performance. The study was conducted in two different areas of Tanzania, where as in one area Toggenburg was kept in semi-­‐‑intensive system, and milk yield on 3.0 litres per day was observed in pure breed Toggenburg. In the other area goats are kept more in extensive system where farmers to a less degree were practising zero grazing and growing fodder plants. Milk yield on 1.9 litres per day was observed. The study also observed a decrease in yields related 18 to the decrease in purity of the breed. In the area of extensive system both Toggenburg and Saanen breed was kept. A larger milk yield was observed in Saanen compared with Toggenburg by 2.2 and 1.9 litres per day respectively. In Norris et al. (2011) a study with three different breeds were conducted, Toggen-­‐‑
burg, British Alpine and Saanen. This study was located in South Africa and goats were kept under extensive system based on natural feeding regime. Daily milk yields was 1.5, 0.8 and 0.6 liters for Saanen, British Alpine and Toggenburg re-­‐‑
spectively. These different milk yields provides knowledge of how production systems affects milk yields as well as the breed. In table 1 below, the milk yields found in the selected literature is provided. Table 1 -­‐‑ Milk yield of different goat breeds under similar production systems to where data was collected Breed Milk yield (l) Norwegian 1.0 Toggenburg 2.2 Saanen 1.5 British Alpine 0.8 Toggenburg 0.6 Toggenburg 3.0 Saanen 2.2 Toggenburg 1.9 Average 1.7 Production system Smallholder system Semi-­‐‑intensive Extensive Extensive Extensive Semi-­‐‑intensive Extensive Extensive Place Tanzania Kenya South Africa South Africa South Africa Tanzania Tanzania Tanzania Author(s) Eik et al. (2006) Ahuya et al. (2009) Norris et al. (2011) Norris et al. (2011) Norris et al. (2011) Jackson (2013) Jackson (2013) Jackson (2013) Lactation length Lactation length is the period in which the doe is providing milk. The lactation length has an obvious effect on milk yield due to the total quantity of milk col-­‐‑
lected during lactation. The length is often controlled by farmer’s management in order to obtain the most beneficially length compared with milk yield, which de-­‐‑
creases after its peak. Also reproduction influence lactation length through the following gestation, which require a dry period (lactation stop) before the fol-­‐‑
lowing kidding. Observed lengths under smallholder conditions vary from 6 months to 10 months. Ahuya et al. (2009) indicated a lactation length on just above 7 months. Report by Kamal and Nikhaila (2009) showed a lactation length on 6 month. Extended lactations were observed by Eik et al. (2008) and Safari et al. (2008) on 10 and 8 months respectively. In table 2 the lactation length found in the selected literature is provided. Table 2 -­‐‑ Lactation length of goats under similar production conditions Breed Lactation length (days) Norwegian 300 Norwegian 240 Toggenburg 225 Nubian 181 Average 237 Production system Smallholder system Subsistence Semi-­‐‑intensive Extensive Author(s) Eik et al. (2008) Safari et al. (2008) Ahuya et al. (2009) Kamal and Nikhaila (2009) Dry period Dry period is a non-­‐‑lactating period of the lactation cycle. This period is critical for does in order to recover and gain any lost weight and energy through lacta-­‐‑
tion period. The greater milk yield the goat has produced the more likely its body will be depleted of the nutrients used in milk secretion. Higher milk production 19 require longer dry period in order for the doe to recover. If dry period is too short for the doe to fully recover it usually produce only 65-­‐‑75 % milk in the subsequent lactation compared with does given the required dry period (Barnet & Frederick, 2009). 3.4.2 Reproduction performance Reproduction performance is essential for lactation and failure in reproduction leads to losses in milk production, young stock for replacement and, hence for selection intensity. Performance within reproduction is dependent on growth rates. It affects the time to reach critical body weight for the onset of puberty. Puberty is a function of both body weight and age (Gimenez & Rodning, 2007). The traits of reproduction are controlled by both genetic and non-­‐‑genetic factors as well as interaction between them. Weather and nutrition are some of the non-­‐‑
genetic factors affecting reproduction and if does are not able to maintain a nor-­‐‑
mal body temperature ovulation and conception rates decrease. Nutrition is the most effective non-­‐‑genetic factor influencing reproduction. It af-­‐‑
fects the onset of puberty through body weight, body condition, and conception rate at first oestrus in doelings (female goat not given birth) (Gimenez & Rod-­‐‑
ning, 2007). In general nutrition is crucial to ensuring high ovarian activity (Mmbengwa, et al., 2009), which increases the chances for conception. For new-­‐‑
born kids their health and survival are ensured by sufficient nutrition. If does are weak when giving birth, their kids will be weak too. When kids are born weak they might not have the strength to stand up and find its mothers teat and on the other hand a weak doe is likely not to produce the required amount of milk, if the kid does find her teats and starts suckling. Either way, the kids will suffer from starvation. Starvation is a common cause of kid mortality (ESGPIP, 2015). Breed is the second prominent factor causing variations in reproduction perfor-­‐‑
mance. Improving genotypes of dairy goats increases the milk performance (Eik, et al. 2008; Donkin & Boyazoglu, 2000), which is mainly due to the high heritabil-­‐‑
ity found for milk yield traits (Oliver et al., 2005). Nutritional status is the most important factor influencing a farmer’s dairy goat flock (Gimenez & Rodning, 2007). At the same time a factor, which the farmer has the most control of through feeding management. The performance of reproduction can be monitored by different measurements. In this case three parameters have been chosen, age at first kidding (AFK), kid-­‐‑
ding interval (KI) and litter size. Each of these categories affects the total repro-­‐‑
ductive performance, both for individual farmers production and for group pro-­‐‑
duction in terms of performance of goat solidarity chain. Age at first kidding AFK varies considerably in the literature from lowest AFK at 387 days (Ince, 2010) and highest AFK at 759 days (Ahuya et al. 2009). The average AFK through literature is 517 days or 17 months (table 3). The earlier the doe starts to kid the longer the productive span potentially would be. This parameter is especially important in order of determining lifetime productivity. The variation of AFK is often due to the environmental factors such as nutrition, temperature and health. 20 Does living in harsh environments (related to environmental factors) are ex-­‐‑
pected to have a higher AFK than does living in optimal environments. Table 3 -­‐‑ Age at first kidding of different goat breeds in different countries Breed AFK (days) 525 527 Production condi-­‐‑
tion Smallholder system Smallholder system Place Author(s) Tanzania Tanzania Kiango (1989) Kiango (1996) 732 Smallholder system Hamad (2001) Norwegian + crosses Saanen 408 Subsistence SUA-­‐‑
Tanzania Tanzania 498 Intensive Mexico Toggenburg Saanen Saanen Toggenburg Average 759 387 402 414 517 Smallholder system Extensive Semi-­‐‑intensive Semi-­‐‑intensive Kenya Turkey Tanzania Tanzania Tores-­‐‑Vazquez et al. (2009) Ahuya et al. (2009) Ince (2010) Jackson (2013) Jackson et al. (2014) Norwegian Norwegian cross-­‐‑
es Dairy goat Safari et al. (2008) Kidding interval KI is expressed as number of days between two consecutive kiddings. This pa-­‐‑
rameter is also important to determine total lifetime productivity, but it also af-­‐‑
fects the animal population turnover rate. A longer kidding interval influences a group solidarity chain (see chapter 5 for more about solidarity chain) by in-­‐‑
creased KI will expectedly prolong the duration of the chain. The kidding interval consists of two periods, days open (empty days) and gestation period. Thus lac-­‐‑
tation length and dry period are components of KI. Both genetic and environ-­‐‑
mental factors influence KI, such as breed, age and level of nutrition (Ndlovu, 1990). Exotic pure breeds introduced in the tropics are expected to have a longer KI than indigenous goats. The reason is to be found in oestrus activity, which tends to be greater in tropic breeds than in temperate goats provided with same level of nutrition (Fatet et al. 2011). Nutrition has great influence on KI. Kamal & Nikhiali (2009) found that under-­‐‑nutrition extend the number of open days, which leads to prolonged KI. When inadequate nutrition occurs it delays the oc-­‐‑
currence of postpartum oestrus (Dadi et al. 2008). Seasons can affect the quality of sexual activity and performance of goats. Lopes et al. (2001) found that goats were most likely to be in oestrus (in heat) during the late rainy season going to-­‐‑
wards the dry season. An optimal KI depends on various factors and also depends on what is the goal or desired production of the goat. Under semi-­‐‑intensive and extensive produc-­‐‑
tion systems an optimal KI of one year is normally considered (Eik et al. 2008). Factors like high prices and/or demand of the goats will make famers reduce this interval on the cost of milk production. Various KIs are found in the literature but if only looking at literature compiled in East Africa under extensive or semi-­‐‑
intensive systems by smallholders (table 4) the KI is on average 10.5 months (321 days). 21 Table 4 -­‐‑ Kidding interval (KI) of different goat breeds in East Africa Breed KI (days) Norwegian crosses 354 Norwegian 318 Norwegian + crosses 345 Toggenburg 302 Saanen 285 Average 321 Production condition Smallholder system Subsistence Smallholder system Smallholder system Semi-­‐‑intensive Country SUA-­‐‑Tanzania Tanzania Tanzania Kenya Tanzania Author(s) Hamad (2001) Safari et al. (2008) Eik et al. (2008) Ahuya et al. (2009) Jackson (2013) Litter size The number of kids in a litter is defined as litter size. It is the total number of kids born per kidding per goat. This parameter is important to determent the ef-­‐‑
ficiency of reproduction, which is useful for individual farmers and for the group SC. The litter size increases the pool of offspring for further reproduction or sale for individual farmers and it increases the possibilities for early completion of the SC. Litter size is mainly related to nutrition of the doe and weight of it during conception rather than age (Amoah et al. 1996; Sangare & Pandey, 2000). The relation between litter size and nutrition results in differentiation in seasons ac-­‐‑
cording to litter size. The highest litter size is seen in the dry season, which is connected abundant availability of good quality pasture during the rain season (Amoah et al. 1996: Lopez et al. 2001). Production system also affects litter size significantly. Faruque et al. (2010) has shown that litter size is higher in inten-­‐‑
sive systems compared with semi-­‐‑intensive systems. Litter size has a low herita-­‐‑
bility and is mainly affected by environmental factors. Litter size can be used as an indicator on the does fitness or adaptability to the environment, which can influence the total robustness of dairy goats under tropic conditions (Manédez et al., 2004). Table 5 provides different litter size observations found in literature of extensive or semi-­‐‑intensive systems. The average litter size under these conditions is 1.4. Table 5 -­‐‑ Litter size for goats in tropic areas under extensive or semi-­‐‑intensive systems Breed Litter size Norwegian 1.4 Toggenburg 1.7 Saanen 1.1 Toggenburg 1.2 Average 1.4 Production system Subsistence Smallholder Extensive Semi-­‐‑intensive Country Tanzania Kenya Turkey Tanzania Author(s) Safari et al. 2008 Ahuya et al. (2009) Ince (2010) Jackson (2013) Lower milk production is observed in does giving birth to singles compared to those with multiple litter size (Argüello et al., 2005). Does with singles have an increased protein level and lower fat contents compared with multiple (Salama et al. 2005). The high milk production from does with multiple litter size as caused by high lactogenic activities during prenatal stage. This activity cause greater development of mammary gland, which will increase the potential for milk synthesis and, hence milk yield during postnatal. 3.4.3 Robustness Robustness is understood as goat’s ability to adapt to and thrive in certain envi-­‐‑
ronments. This factor is especially important when introducing goat breeds of 22 temperate climate (exotic) in tropic climate. The result of robustness can become vital to whether a breed survives and perform in a curtain area or not. Breed Purebred dairy goat breeds such as Saanen, Britain Alpine and Toggenburg are all originated in Europe in temperate climate. Improved dairy goat breeds are introduced in developing countries in order to increase the milk production (Peacock, 2008). Crossbreeding programs between exotic breeds and local breeds, such as SEA goat, has also been widely exposed in developing countries to obtain suitable improved genotypes (Aziz, 2010). The motivation for cross-­‐‑
breeding was to get the best from both genotypes. By combining an increased potential for milk production with the resistance to tropic diseases and adaption to the hot weather conditions the best potentials of both genotypes is made. The choice of genotype depends on the objectives of the breeding combined with physical availability and access of genetic resources for farmers and production environment (Ahuya et al. 2005). The objectives of breeding are most likely to be crossbreeds of exotic and traditional breeds because of the combined robustness this creates. Robustness is influenced by production environment factors like nutrition, disease pressure and general management. Poor nutrition affects the immune system and the ability of animals to fight diseases (Yami, 2008), which can be a main driver for high mortality. Availability of desired genetic resources (animals) can be enhanced through organized and controlled breeding as in breeding associations. The access to these animals can depend on whether you are within or outside this association. When introducing pure exotic goats to tropic conditions the milk production has shown to decreas compared to the production in temperate conditions. The rea-­‐‑
son for low milk production in exotic breeds has been found by Norris et al. (2011) to be because they could not express their full genetic potential under tropical climates. Further, the study suggests that improvements of adaptation, feed conversion efficiency and reproduction traits are factors that could benefit the dairy goat production under tropic production conditions. Many of these fac-­‐‑
tors are reasons why farmers prefer to keep local breeds together with the ease of simple management requirements (Chenyambuga & Lekule, 2014). Mortality Mortality is a constraint to the goat production of individual farmers as well as a constraint to the function of group SC. High mortality in the beginning of the SC can be terminating of the chain because of the reliability of fewer does to evolve the chain. Like the litter size, mortality is closely related to the production sys-­‐‑
tem and influenced by factors such as low birth weight, low milk production of the doe, season of birth and type of birth (litter size) (Kamal & Nikhaila, 2009) as well as disease and pathogen pressure. Birth weight has a significant influence on pre-­‐‑weaning mortality rate of kids (Hailu et al. 2006). Starvation will be a prevalent cause of death regarding low birth weight due to the lower energy-­‐‑pull provided from birth. Generally male kids exhibits higher birth weight compared with female kids (Amoah et al., 1996; Ahuya et al. 2009). This differentiation can imply higher mortality in female kids 23 than male kids. However, a study conducted by Turkson et al. (2004) observed higher mortality rate in male than female kids under intensive production sys-­‐‑
tem in Ghana. A reasonable assumption is that female kids are favoured and more valuable to the farmer, and therefore farmers tend to take better care of these. Litter size affects mortality and larger litter size results in higher mortality rate (Mtenga et al. 2002; Snyman, 2010). This correlation can be caused by limited milk consumption after birth or by limited nutrients in the uterus. The kid mor-­‐‑
tality rate decreases along with parities. This can be connected with the milk production, which increases together with parity (Marai et al. 2002). Breed is another factor affecting kid mortality. Indigenous goats are more resistance to diseases and stress, hence have higher survival rate than exotic breeds (Bardind & Dandewar, 2004). Often the exotic breeds are not adapted to tropic diseases, which result in higher kid mortality rate compared with indigenous counter-­‐‑
parts. Mortality is a powerful selective force for breeding, only allowing the best adap-­‐‑
tive goats to survive in certain production systems. The disease pressure elimi-­‐‑
nates unfit genotypes from the population hence only adaptable genotypes will survive. In table 6 mortality rates from selected studies with similar production systems are provided. These studies are based on goats kept under similar con-­‐‑
ditions as the goats in the data. Table 6 -­‐‑ Mortality rates of different breeds in different countries kept under similar conditions Breed Mortality rate % Production condition Norwegian + crosses 7 Smallholder system Saanen 21 Extensive Taggar 19 Extensive Toggenburg 11 Semi-­‐‑intensive Average 15 Country Author(s) Tanzania Turkey Sudan Tanzania Eik et al. 2008 Ince, 2010 Bushara et al. 2011 Jackson, 2013 Disease pressure Rapid introduction of new animals to a flock is expected to increase the pathogen pressure. Swai et al. (2013) suggested that low introduction rate of new animals to goat flocks could be reason to low incidence of pneumonia pathogens. The pathogen pressure increases with the degree of introducing outside animals to the flock. This happens by free grazing the goats because goats will meet other animals and consume potentially contaminated feed. This can also happens by mixing goats with other animals on the farm, which have been free grazing. When animals are to be sold they are physically brought to the market place, and where many other animals are gathered. If the animals is not sold it is brought home again. The same pathogen risk, perhaps to larger degree is when buying an animal at the market and introducing it to the flock. If the management systems are not to be changed, pathogens can be combatted by vaccinations and treat-­‐‑
ments. This requires that farmers are being able to afford these drugs and also that they are available for farmers to buy. The breed and purity of breeds has a curtain vulnerability “potential” to conception of diseases and pathogens, also 24 called resistance, and the management factors either adds or stagnate this poten-­‐‑
tial depending on the way they are handled. 4 Conceptual Framework A conceptual framework is a way of organizing information and to be able to analyse data through a certain perspective. In this thesis the framework is based on a food security concept because this is the predominant aim of this thesis. A definition and scope of the understanding of capacity building is provided on the basis of capacity building being a tool to reach the aim of food security. 4.1 Food security Food security (FS) as a concept originated in the mid-­‐‑1970’s as a response to the global food crisis. It is a concept widely used in the discussion of international food problems (Clay, 2002). Many definitions on FS is found in literature, actual-­‐‑
ly more than 200 definitions has been found in the past decades published writ-­‐‑
ing (Clay, 2002). All definitions are rooted in the same intentions and it is more a question of reframing and wording. FS is dealing with food supply issues, on increasing the availability and peoples access of foodstuffs national and international in a stable way. It is also raising focus on nutrition and adequate diets (De Schutter, 2013), and FAO emphasised this e.g. in 2009 by stating: “The nutritional dimension is integral to the concept of food security” (CFS, 2012). The food security concept emphasise that all peo-­‐‑
ple are entitled to a healthy life which, among others requirements, require a di-­‐‑
verse nutritious diet in order to live a healthy life hence, nutrition security (FAO, 2002). The achievement of all people being entitled to a diverse nutritious diet, calls for the utilization dimension of food security. Utilization is an expression of how effectively available food can be utilized (FAO, 2013). For instance if a diet is primary based on maize or rice, it will contain high amounts of carbohydrates. This diet may keep people from hunger, but leads to malnutrition because of in-­‐‑
adequate requirements to the human nutrition. A definition by UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation FAO is combining all the above in the state: “Food security is a situation that exists when all people, at all times, have physical, social and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life” (FAO, 2002). The definition of food security by FAO includes four dimensions, which are: availability, access, utilization and stability. Each dimension is vital in order to fully achieve a state of food security and the specific definitions of the four di-­‐‑
mensions are provided below in table 7. Table 7 Overview of the four food security dimensions and their definitions according to FAO (FAO, 2006b). Dimension Definition Availability The availability of sufficient quantities of food of appropriate quality, supplied through domestic production or imports (including food aid). 25 Access Utilization Stability Access by individuals to adequate resources (entitlements) for acquiring appropri-­‐‑
ate foods for a nutritious diet. Entitlements are defined as a set of all commodity bundles over which a person can establish command given the legal, political, eco-­‐‑
nomic and social arrangements of the community in which they live (including tra-­‐‑
ditional rights such as access to common resources). Utilization of food through adequate diet, clean water, sanitation and health care to reach a state of nutritional well-­‐‑being where all physiological needs are met. This brings out the importance of non-­‐‑food inputs in food security. To be food secure, a population, household or individual must have access to ade-­‐‑
quate food at all times. They should not risk losing access to food as a consequence of sudden shocks (e.g. an economic or climate crisis) or cyclical events (e.g. sea-­‐‑
sonal food insecurity). The concept of stability can therefore refer to both the availability and access dimensions of food security. In the following part of this section a further understanding of the four dimen-­‐‑
sions is provided together with a specific scope of how each dimension is used in this thesis. Availability The availability of food relates to the supply of food. Supplying enough food to a given population is done through production, distribution and exchange (Grego-­‐‑
ry et al., 2005). Production of food relates to both quantity and quality and is in-­‐‑
fluenced by factors such as land ownership, land use, soil management and crop and livestock production including selection, breeding, management and har-­‐‑
vesting (FAO, 1997). The influencing factors often compete with other purposes of use. Agriculture land can be used for urbanization or can be lost to desertifica-­‐‑
tion or soil erosion because of unsustainable agricultural practices (Godfray et al., 2010). Crop production can be based on growing feed for livestock or bioen-­‐‑
ergy instead of for human food and climate changes can determine what crops and livestock can thrive in certain areas (Gregory et al. 2005). A country can be-­‐‑
come food secure without sufficient areas of land for crop or livestock produc-­‐‑
tion. Food can be distributed between regions and nations through markets. Food security only exists if these markets distribute food in a fair way benefiting both the producer and the consumer. Food distribution involves storage, processing, transport, packaging and market-­‐‑
ing (FAO, 1997). Food waste within distribution can affect the available quantity of food. Poor infrastructure complicates transport within the food chain and lack of storage abilities on farms or nearby locations both contribute to increased food waste. The transport difficulties can also increase prices of inputs like water or fertilizer as well as moving outputs (food products) to markets, domestic or global (Godfray et al., 2010). The need for exchanging food on markets emerges due to the fact that few households are self-­‐‑reliant for food at all times. Markets or trade systems are created for exchanging food and can be based on either cash, exchange of goods or bartering (Gregory et al. 2005). During the last two decades food supplies have grown faster than the populations globally, which has resulted in rising food availability in the markets (FAO, 2013). Accessibility to markets and trading systems by individuals are the great barrier to achieving food security (Tweeten, 1999). 26 The focus on availability in this thesis Goat production including milk production, reproduction and robustness are the main focus with respect to the availability dimension. This thesis will concen-­‐‑
trate on how performance of the goats affects the availability of milk on the household level. The related influencing factors of performance are also investi-­‐‑
gated. Access The access to food refers to affordability and allocation of food. Food preferences of individuals and households have to be taken into account (Gregory et al. 2005). Even though food is available it is not implied that individuals has access. Hunger and malnutrition are often related to inability to access available food, often due to poverty, rather than because of scarcity of food (UN, 1999). Eco-­‐‑
nomic and physical access relates to affordability and allocation respectively. The economic access to food relies on disposal income, food prices and provision of and access to social support (FAO, 2013). Access is determined by whether individuals have the adequate income to purchase (buy) food or sufficient land and other resources (e.g. knowledge, access to crops and water) to grow one’s own food (Garrett & Ruel, 1999). Physical access refers to availability and quality of infrastructure related to the food chain. Infrastructure is influenced by; whether food can be transported by road, railways or through ports, how com-­‐‑
munication about markets and storage facilities function, and other functions fa-­‐‑
cilitating markets (FAO, 2013). Access to food affects individuals directly or indirectly. The direct affect is relat-­‐‑
ed to more of the described access above, such as economic access and human and material resources of a HH (household). Also the physical location of a HH can affect access as well as factors like income, land, labour resources, inher-­‐‑
itance and gifts (FAO, 1997). The indirect access to food refers to the ability of individuals within a HH to ensure access to food. Demographic and education level influences access as well as gender and intrahousehold food allocation. The gender of the head of a household may determines the allocation of food within a household by one’s own preferences, which also influences the food purchased for the HH (Garrett & Ruel, 1999). The allocation of food within a HH (intra-­‐‑
household) depends on who is head of the HH. Food security of children increas-­‐‑
es when the female (wife) is contributing substantially to the HH income com-­‐‑
pared to when the spouse (husband) is the sole provider (Schmeer et al. 2007). The focus on access in this thesis The ownership of goats at the HH level, including who have main responsibility and are selling goats, is investigated. Economic and physical access to the milk within the household is examined including the use of markets for distributing goat milk. Utilization Utilization refers to the metabolism of food by individuals (Tweeten, 1999). When HH members gain access to food, a variety of factors affect the quantity and quality of the food (Ecker & Breisinger, 2012). Utilization is an expression of 27 how effectively available food can be utilized and refers to quality and prepara-­‐‑
tion of food, but also involves non-­‐‑food inputs like sanitation, clean water and health care centres (FAO, 2013). The state of health influences utilization since the health of individuals controls the effectiveness of the metabolism. Sanitation and water quality affects health by the occurrence and spreading of diseases, such as intestinal parasites (FAO, 1997). Health care centres can remedy de-­‐‑
creased metabolism due to diseases through treatment and that way strengthen-­‐‑
ing individual’s utilization of food. Education on nutrition and food preparation can also improve utilization (Tweeten, 1999). Utilization can be measured through nutrition status and indicators of under-­‐‑
nutrition of children below the age of five are especially widely used for this purpose. Under-­‐‑nutrition is a dimension of malnutrition and conveys the impact of adequate food intake and poor health (FAO, 2013). Both short-­‐‑term and long-­‐‑
term indicators can be used. Wasting is an indication of short-­‐‑term inadequacy of food intake, usually from an illness or an infection. Wasting is a measure of being too thin for one’s height. Stunting is an indication of long-­‐‑term inadequacy of food intake by repeated episodes of infections and/or of acute under-­‐‑nutrition, stunting being a measure of being too short of one’s age (FAO, 2013). The focus on utilization in this thesis There has been no specific data collection which relates to utilization. This does not mean this dimension has been ignored or is not important. Specifically the contribution of goat milk to the diet, hence increase the utilization quality of the diet, is a valuable factor for enhancing development of dairy goat production. Thereby this dimension becomes a driving force to why goats are relevant for farmer families’ food security. Stability The stability dimension refers to the ability to obtain food over time and to the extent of and exposure to risks (FAO, 2013). Food insecurity, as a result of insta-­‐‑
ble food security can be transitory, seasonal or chronic or, in other words, of short-­‐‑term or long-­‐‑term duration. An exposure to short-­‐‑term risks can endanger long-­‐‑term progress (FAO, 2013). The factors affected by instability are food pro-­‐‑
duction, food import, market prices and supply. Climate shocks such as drought or floods result in crop failure and decrease the availability of food. This affects stability on short-­‐‑term either transitory by food-­‐‑price spikes or seasonally by regular patterns of growing seasons due to dry periods of the year (FAO, 1997). Food import can be affected by short-­‐‑term changes in foreign exchange reserves to pay for food imports. This can drag on and become a long-­‐‑term issue due to civil conflicts or political interventions. Instability on market prices can either be affected by instable food production or by instability of supply. Prices on inputs to production also affect the market prices (Ecker & Breisinger, 2012). Chronic or permanent food insecurity goes beyond long-­‐‑term food insecurity. This is de-­‐‑
fined by a long-­‐‑term, persistent lack of adequate food (Ecker & Breisinger, 2012), which somehow creates stability in a paradoxically critical way. At this stage HHs are in constant risk of being unable to provide adequate amounts of food to all members of the HH. Repeated short-­‐‑term instability and risk can make HH more vulnerable to chronic food insecurity (FAO, 1997). 28 The focus on stability in this thesis Feeding and reproduction management was investigated in relation to the stabil-­‐‑
ity of goat performance. Goat’s effects on farmer’s ability to cope with risks are investigated by analysing capacities which have been building up over time. The production on farms also affects the stability and will also be included. 4.2 Capacity building Capacity building (CB) and the language around this concept originate from in-­‐‑
ternational aid experience and became widely popular during the 1990’s, namely because of its use by United Nation Development Programme (UNDP). The defi-­‐‑
nition made by UNDP is broadly accepted and adopted within the developing re-­‐‑
search world: “The process by which individuals, organizations, institutions and societies develop abilities to perform functions, solve problems and set and achieve objectives” (UNDP, 2009). Basically, capacity building creates opportuni-­‐‑
ties to perform actions, which can be done on individual, organizational, institu-­‐‑
tional and society level. As described in the introduction, an approach to ADP based on developing social networks and platforms within communities enhances knowledge production and social learning processes (Edelenbos, et al. 2011). Another important value of this approach is the ability to ensure sustainability of the introduced technol-­‐‑
ogies and resource (de Haan, 2001). Thereby the ADP is more likely to progress after the projects ends. These social processes, as networks, are relying on capac-­‐‑
ities on organizational to society level, where smaller groups are categorized as organizational and community as society. In addition, individuals’ ability to ac-­‐‑
cess and transfer knowledge into action is determine the change in behaviour. Especially the relevance of knowledge is essential to enhance any low-­‐‑
performing productions or communities (Strunk et al. 2014; Schauppenlehner-­‐‑
Kloyber & Penker, 2015). New knowledge on goat management and social mobilization such as forming groups are some of the capacities the project in this case study is providing. All capacity assistance from the project is for the participants to increase their own and their family’s food security. FS is a complex and multi-­‐‑dimensional concept and projects aiming to increase FS have to process many actions from project managers, involved experts and institutions, target people etc. for succeeding. Capacities of social structure and providing knowledge, skills and equipment on multiple levels are needed to make people to act. Knowledge, ability to transfer knowledge into action and so-­‐‑
cial relations are capacities linked to the goat farmers in different ways. Below is given a description of how the capacities are affecting and contributing to peo-­‐‑
ple’s abilities and a processing to how it relates to goat farmers. Knowledge Access to knowledge is important for the individual farmer to fully adapt to pro-­‐‑
ject. If farmers do not get knowledge and information they get disconnected to 29 the project (de Haan, 2001). Not only does farmers need access to knowledge, it also has to consist relevant knowledge that farmers find worth changing behav-­‐‑
iour for. When farmers find relevance in knowledge they show ownership and accountability and adopts new relevant knowledge (de Haan, 2001; Lang et al. 2012). The willingness of the farmer to adjust their perceptions and openness to a learning process originating in the accessible knowledge are fundamental con-­‐‑
ditions to reach the goals of providing the knowledge (Mobjörk, 2010). When farmers are adopting knowledge they are participants linked to social learning, though interaction can be of various intensity (Wiek, 2007). The higher intensity of interaction between actors in a learning process, the more relevant will the knowledge production be. When farmers are participating in expert hearings e.g. the local extension officer is invited to talk about prevalent diseases to goats, the interaction between participants will be highly one-­‐‑way from expert to farmer. To some extend bi-­‐‑ or multidirectional relation to exchange relevant information can occur. If the farmers have specifically asked to hear about cer-­‐‑
tain diseases and are directing the expert during the session to be of their rele-­‐‑
vance, they have mutual one-­‐‑way communication (Wiek, 2007). Interaction in-­‐‑
creases in intensity when the learning process is emerged in common collabora-­‐‑
tion. E.g. when farmers generate new effective goat management based on all participants’ expertise they are highly interactive intense and the outcome is of great relevance of the participants. When interacting in groups for a learning process it lets people organize their own system, which ensures that the cultural context of the specific community is taken into account (de Haan, 2001). Transforming knowledge into action Relevance is a key factor for creating action and farmers will only change behav-­‐‑
iour and thereby take action if they find the learning process relevant. This is based on the conception that people choose to maintain satisfactory relations and elude unsatisfactory ones (Checkland, 2005). The chosen capacities and their common relevance are of high interest for engaging farmers to participate. Two capacities are put into play when referring to social learning through farm groups. 1. Access to the technology gaining knowledge about (e.g. goats). Any new knowledge will only lead to a learning process if the farmers have access to the technology they gain knowledge about (Schauppenlehner-­‐‑Kloyber & Penker, 2015). For instance if farmers learn about goat management but they do not have the ability to purchase a goat and gain benefits of the new management, this knowledge is not relevant to the farmer. 2. Capacities to create learning process-­‐‑
es. Knowledge is not equal to learning but learning depends on knowledge. This means that knowledge can appear without learning, but not vice versa. Knowledge is only transferred to learning when “it involves the enrichment of existing knowledge and creation of new knowledge” whereas “knowledge ena-­‐‑
bles a person to execute a confined task based on information, experiences, skills and attributes” (Van Der Veen & Korthals Alters, 2012). Social learning allows participants to coordinate knowledge within their collective understanding re-­‐‑
quired to transform a situation, which then leads to concerted action (Collins & Ison, 2009). When a farmer group accesses goats they thereby finds knowledge of goat management relevant. Further on they interact with each other based on their individual knowledge from information, consultation and facilitation capac-­‐‑
30 ities to improve the complexity of practical managing the goats. The knowledge is necessary but insufficient for improving complex situations (Collins & Ison, 2009) such as rearing goats optimally within all influencing factors that first will become clear to farmers when doing daily practical work with the goats. Social relations Farmers are engaged in several social relations of whom they only maintain be-­‐‑
cause they benefit from them (Checkland, 2005) e.g. their families, neighbours and village. When introducing new technologies and new knowledge the excising relations may not be beneficial to farmers because the relations are build on dif-­‐‑
ferent bases. When something new is introduced is will require new social rela-­‐‑
tions for the farmer if the existing relations fails to support the farmer. As al-­‐‑
ready emphasized knowledge transform into learning, and thereby actions, when farmers are able to socially interact and create relevant learning processes. By only creating a social structure of new relations (a group) for farmers to enter the great benefit will be that the participants organize their own system, which will make all participants to feel equally engaged and valued in the group be-­‐‑
cause they all have to negotiate to make sure it will fit within their world (da Haan, 2001). The creation of groups by selecting participants has to build on bringing a common concern or goal, such as improving farm production, to the centre stage (Schauppenlehner-­‐‑Kloyber & Penker, 2015). The theme of the common concern or theme becomes the leading structure of the group instead of a central leader the communication, cooperation and learning will be on eye-­‐‑
level. This social structuring also takes away certain barriers such as gender and religion because they all work for the common goal (de Haan, 2001). 5 The Ripat project When analysing how the dairy goats have affected farmers it is important to un-­‐‑
derstand in what context and for what purpose the goats were introduced in the specific case project. This chapter describes the underlying approach of the pro-­‐‑
ject, the theory behind the rationale of this approach and the overall practical function of the project and the actors within. 5.1 Project approach Rural Initiatives for Participatory Agricultural Transformation (Ripat) is an ap-­‐‑
proach to agricultural development targeting development on community level. The Ripat approach has been developed, implemented and refined in a series of four projects over the period 2006-­‐‑12 in a close partnership between the Danish based Rockwool Foundation and the Tanzanian NGO RECODA (Research, Com-­‐‑
munity and Organizational Development Association). RECODA has been the im-­‐‑
plementing organization in all four projects. The process has involved a continu-­‐‑
ous learning-­‐‑by-­‐‑doing process. The intention was to find sustainable, low cost solutions to the challenges faced by small-­‐‑scale farmers by providing proper tools, techniques and information through a participatory "help to self-­‐‑help" ap-­‐‑
proach (Lilleør & Lund-­‐‑Sørensen, 2013). 31 Ripat focuses on community economic development. The aim is to increase eco-­‐‑
nomic growth and food security among families with small-­‐‑scale farms by im-­‐‑
proving land use and animal stock on the principle of help to self-­‐‑help (Lilleør & Lund-­‐‑Sørensen, 2013). The perspective of developing the approach is that NGOs, governments and other institutions dealing with agricultural development, will incorporate the Ripat approach as an agricultural extension approach to their development work. 5.2 Theory Based on the theory provided in the conceptual framework (food security is the aim, capacity building is the tool) an understanding of the project approach is provided. The theoretical thoughts underlying this project is assessed to be a theory of change relying on a linear logic model approach arguing that one thing leads to another. A descriptive logic model explaining the basics in this logic is stated by Patton (2008) “you crawl before you walk before you run… Crawling precedes walking, which precedes running”. This modelling approach is a way to describe how project activities lead to project outcomes (Patton 2008). This linear ap-­‐‑
proach becomes a theory of change when you explicitly add the change mecha-­‐‑
nism. These assumptions are based on the constellation structure observed in the project during the analysis of it. The change mechanisms emphasized is the capacities needed to lead the project activities to project outcome. By providing certain capacities in a logic constellation it will result in a desired outcome by changes in farmers’ behaviour and attitude. The primary capacities provided through the project are knowledge, ability to transfer knowledge into action and social relations (structure). The theoretical background is illustrated in figure 1 and takes a point of departure in capacities related to the introduction of goats in the project. 32 Project reach out to target farmers Sensitisation for change and mobilisation to action Farmers voluntarily enter and attend the project (Participation) Social structure by forming groups Farmers learn about recommended general important principles in goat production. Farm-­‐‑
ers practice on-­‐‑farm after receiving a goat. (Increases knowledge and abilities to take action) Facilitator provides knowledge and the group forms SC that provides abil-­‐‑
ity (goats) for farmers to transform k nowledge into action and practice learning on-­‐‑farm Farmers d evelop commitments to the project by entering the solidarity chain and passing on offspring and practice managements such as, zero-­‐‑grazing, constructing goats houses and planting fodder crops. (Attitude and behavior change) Follow up’s by the Livestock sub-­‐‑committees and SF provides further teaching and support to the group Farmers fully adopt the technology and the HH becomes more food secure (Desired outcome) Figure 1 -­‐‑ The Linear Logic Model for the processed i nvolved in i ntroducing dairy goats through a Ripat approach. Based on the linear model from (Patton, 2008). Texts i n b rackets () a re desired actions of the farmer. Text i n red is the capacities provided through the project. The capacities and the actors involved in the processes introduced in figure 1 are specifically defined in the Ripat approach and below the relevant definitions re-­‐‑
lated to goat production are provided according to the manual for implementing the Ripat approach (Vesterager et al. 2013). Group formation A village assembly is done before the formation of groups where the Ripat ap-­‐‑
proach and the project is introduced including information on reasons for, and advantages of, forming groups. The village leaders, with assistance from the im-­‐‑
plementing organisation facilitates, forms groups. Two groups are formed in each target village consisting of 30-­‐‑35 members. Certain criteria are followed when selecting group members: • All members participate voluntarily and are committed to the project. • Participants should not be rich in terms of the wealth ranking in the village. • Participants must be engaged in farming and have between one and five acres of their own farm land available. • Participants must be willing and able to share the new ideas with others, and to learn from others (be in good standing in the community). 33 • There should be equal numbers of men and women in the group, or more women than men. • Only one person per household, who must be over 18 years of age, may partic-­‐‑
ipate. • Group members must come from the village and ideally should know one an-­‐‑
other in advance. When the groups are formed each group (facilitated by the group facilitator) elects group leaders who take the lead in establishing the group activities. Group leader Three leaders are selected in each group, a chairperson, group secretary and group treasurer. Whenever referring to the group leader in this thesis there is referred to the group chairperson. This person has the overall response of the group and takes lead in gathering the group for meeting, announce the agenda, facilitate discussions in the group, maintain discipline and make sure the meet-­‐‑
ings following proper standards, to resolve conflicts be the groups representa-­‐‑
tive for outsiders of the group. Group facilitator The group facilitator is an external person employed by the implementing organ-­‐‑
ization. The main responsibility of this person is concerned implementation and training and coaching the project participants. Establishment of the farmer groups and transferring appropriate agricultural technologies (see basket of op-­‐‑
tions) to the groups are of main concern of the group facilitator. Creating a forum in which group members both learn and develop new technologies together is the aim of good group facilitation. The role can be divided in three areas • Teacher and trainer for participatory learning • Group mentor • Linking, coordination, and communication Important principles in goat production (knowledge) These are divided in five topics or lesson sessions: • Improved breed: Advantages and disadvantages about introducing exotic breed to this local area, including a risk analysis made on this animal. In ad-­‐‑
ditional the production costs, the expected profit gained by farmers from keeping this breed, the labour requirements connected to the breed and op-­‐‑
portunities of using locally available resources is informed to the farmers by the group facilitator. • Housing: Requirements for building an adequate housing, including separat-­‐‑
ing goats from other animals, ability to collect manure and having a feed trough are informed by the group facilitator. Additionally information on construction possibilities and usable materials is provided. • Feeding: The group facilitator provides information about suitable local and introduced fodders, how to establish a functional feeding system and estab-­‐‑
lishment of introduced fodders e.g. elephant grass and importance of water allocation. 34 • Treatments against diseases and parasites: Veterinarian practices including, signs to look for at different diseases and vaccination possibilities. This in-­‐‑
formation can be provided by the group facilitator or by the local extension officer. • Record keeping: The group facilitator provides a record-­‐‑keeping book, which is not specific to goat production but suitable for keeping records of the total project. Regarding goat production records on date, number and sex for off-­‐‑
spring born is emphasized. Solidarity Chain (SC) Before a SC can be formed farmers must be trained in the theoretical terms of important principles for goat production through the five lesson sessions and hereafter, breeding stock is provided. Each group is provided with five 75% purebred females and two 100% purebred males. The group decides among themselves on the five members who will host the initial breeding stock. The group then prepare a list of members interested in receiving offspring, hence forms the SC. After two female offspring have been passed on in the chain the mother animal becomes property of the group member concerned. In order to qualify to receive a goat the member has to meet a list of requirements. For goats the requirements concerns construction of adequate housing as main priority, also establishment of feeding system and planting fodder is required. All mem-­‐‑
bers of the SC signs a specific solidarity chain contract together with the imple-­‐‑
menting organization for making sure that both parts follows the formed rules. Super-­‐‑farmer (SF) A super-­‐‑farmer is defined as individuals who, during the project implementation period, have been identified as people who have developed as social entrepre-­‐‑
neurs and agents for change. They are successful farmers from within the group who have grasped the knowledge provided through training and have success-­‐‑
fully implemented one or more of the technologies promoted. The super-­‐‑farmers play an important role in the dissemination of agricultural technologies to the wider communities and in the establishment of new groups. Livestock sub-­‐‑committee This sub-­‐‑committee in a Ripat group deals with all livestock species introduced. The committee is formed after the facilitator has ended training sessions in live-­‐‑
stock production. The committee consists of four to five group members with a special interest in the technology of livestock production. They function as a back-­‐‑up group with specific responsibilities regarding practical work with the livestock. They take lead in preparing the SC based on the predefined criteria and check and approve the requirements for receiving the livestock, goats in this case. They make follow-­‐‑up visits to the SC members for collecting data on the number and sex of offspring, the number of female offspring distributed and farmers’ adoption of recommended principles for goat production. They take lead in organizing a breeding programme for exchanging breeding stock be-­‐‑
tween groups to avoid inbreeding and in monitoring outbreaks of diseases and pests, which is reported to the local extension officer. 35 5.3 The practical implementation of the project A project normally targets 8-­‐‑10 villages. Two groups of 30-­‐‑35 participants are established in each village. From 2006-­‐‑12 four overall projects have been con-­‐‑
ducted (Ripat 1-­‐‑4). Ripat applies a pragmatic mix of the traditional, ‘top down’ extension method called ‘Training and Visiting (T&V), and the ‘bottom up’ exten-­‐‑
sion method called ‘Farmers Field School (FFS). Spreading the technologies and concepts is one of the targets of success for the project. The project concept and technologies are spread to other interested farmers in the targeted villages and to additional villages through the use of the government agricultural extension officers (EO) and project educated ‘super-­‐‑farmers’ (SF) who function as local paraprofessional agricultural advisors and provide ‘Farmer to Farmer’ technolo-­‐‑
gy transfer (Lilleør & Lund-­‐‑Sørensen, 2013). Before any projects starts a situation analysis is made. This analyse includes in-­‐‑
depth understanding of current farming practices, of seasons with farmers main activities and of the local soil, water and climate conditions. On basis of the situ-­‐‑
ation analysis as well as input from farmers and other relevant people a selective number of technologies are introduced in the project. The technologies are all technologies that are believed to improve the food security and poverty situation in the targeted communities (Vesterager et al., 2013). The pool of the selected technologies is by Ripat call “the basket of options”. Basket of options All farmers in each group are getting knowledge on all technologies in their suit-­‐‑
able basket of options at group-­‐‑level by a facilitator employed by the implement-­‐‑
ing NGO. Many of the technologies are transferred into action by using a group plot for demonstration. This is applied mainly in crops-­‐‑technologies where dif-­‐‑
ferent varieties both local and improved varieties are grown. Regarding live-­‐‑
stock-­‐‑technologies farmers will receive animals e.g. goats through a solidarity chain (SC) (see chapter 6 methods and materials for further elaboration of the goat SC). This also means that not all farmers have access to the animals when getting knowledge about them. Farmers decide for themselves what technologies are relevant for them to implement on their own farm. By teaching, training and facilitating farmer groups on technologies ranging from introduction of perenni-­‐‑
al crops, drought resistant crops, in-­‐‑situ water harvesting, conservation agricul-­‐‑
ture techniques as well as exotic breeds of livestock the approach strives to pro-­‐‑
mote diversification, production resilience and stability. Ripat projects have largely focused on promoting technologies that enhance production smoothing over the year, which in turn has increased food security and reduced child stunt-­‐‑
ing (Larsen & Lilleør, 2014). Dairy goats Providing dairy goat is one of the technologies considered to improve the food security and poverty situation in the targeted communities. In Ripat 3 (case pro-­‐‑
ject) placed in Karatu the reason for including dairy goats were based on their ability to produce milk hence affecting food security. Especially the utilization benefits from milk are key aspects of introducing dairy goats. As described earli-­‐‑
er goat milk provides essential proteins, vitamins, minerals and fat to the diet. A typical diet of people in East Africa is high in carbohydrates, which result in mal-­‐‑
36 nutrition due to inadequate nourishment. Providing dairy goats is expected to enhance nutritious status on children, which will result in a decrease in stunting. Together, dairy goats, banana and poultry production was expected to increase the nutrition security hence the food security (Vesterager, 2015). 6 Methods and material 6.1 Location and Ripat project This chapter includes a description of the area where data was conducted and a description of the project that have contributed to the current status in the area of the data collection. 6.1.1 Karatu district The research was made in close cooperation with the local implementing organi-­‐‑
sation RECODA and within their network of farmers. Some data have been col-­‐‑
lected in the neighbour districts, Babati and Moshi. Various projects and initia-­‐‑
tives of RECODA’s network were visited in order to understand the culture and how RECODA work in general. The majority of the research was made in Karatu district where the Ripat 3 project was incorporated and the field location de-­‐‑
scription will be based on Karatu district. Karatu district is one of five districts in Arusha region, in the northern part of Tanzania (figure 1). It is located south of the equator between latitudes 3°10'–
4°00'S and longitude 34°47'E and the district measures 3,300 km2 . It has been an administrative district since 1997 (Ringo et al., 2007). Three physiographic zones cover the district namely, highlands, midlands and lowlands, with altitudes ranging from 1,000 to 1,900 meters above sea level (Owanya et al., 2012). Annu-­‐‑
al rainfall ranges between zones from less than 400 mm to over 1000 mm and is concentrated in two periods throughout the year. The short rains fall between October and December and the long rains between March and June (KDC, 2001). The annual rainfalls varies year to year. As an example in 2002 the rainfall was 808 mm and 415.5 mm in 2003 (Ringo et al., 2007). Within Karatu district there are four administrative divisions and the divisions are divided into thirteen wards and 45 registered villages. Headquarters is in Karatu town approximately 150 km west of Arusha town. The interviews are col-­‐‑
lected in Endabash division, mainly in three out of four wards, Endabash, Enda-­‐‑
marariek and Kansay. Specifically the interviews were collected in eight villages across Endabash division. In relation to employment and economic importance, crop and livestock production is the most important part of the labour activity. Most people are self-­‐‑employed in the Karatu area, 89 percent of all self-­‐‑
employed classify themselves as subsistence farmers (EDI, 2005). Karatu is tra-­‐‑
ditional home to the Wairaqwi, who speak their own tribal language, Iraqw. Members of this tribe are found in 97 percent of the villages in the district (EDI, 2005). 37 6.1.2 Ripat 3 Ripat 3 is one of the four projects which have been finished up to 2013. The four Ripat projects were located in the northern part of Tanzania. Figure 1 illustrates where the projects were located in relation to each other. The data in the present study focuses on Ripat 3 situated in the Karatu district. Figure 2 -­‐‑ Map of Tanzania and further detailed map of Ripat project locations Ripat 3 was established in September 2008 and ended in July 2012, which also means all groups were formed in 2008. The intention is that Ripat projects are on-­‐‑going for three years, but Ripat 3 was extended by one year due to wide-­‐‑
spread drought (Lilleør & Lund-­‐‑Sørensen, 2013). Lack of irrigation possibilities in large parts of Ripat 3 area required that this project concentrated largely on water conservation methods and cultivation of drought-­‐‑resistant crops. Three types of livestock were provided namely, pigs, dairy goats and poultry. The dis-­‐‑
tribution and number of animals provided to groups vary across the three types of livestock. The functions and distribution of dairy goats is the focus in this the-­‐‑
sis. 6.1.3 Exotic dairy goats In Ripat 3 Saanen was the breed of dairy goats which were given to the groups. In tropical areas such as East Africa a European goat breed such as Saanen is characterised as a breed exotic to their environment. The goats did not come di-­‐‑
rectly from Europe, but have been raised in Tanzania for years. The Ripat project bought all goats from a breeding association dealing with Saanen goats in Tanza-­‐‑
nia. Sixteen groups were provided with Saanen goats, five female and two male goats for each group. The female goats strived to be 75% purebred and male goats to be 100% purebred. No registration papers or other proofs on this matter were 38 given to the farmers. Each group choose five farmers to take care of the initial breeding goats supplied to the groups via that project. The female goats are placed with five different farmers, but male goats do not necessary have to be housed with two other farmers. Some farmers have had both a female and male goat from the beginning. All decisions were taken at the group level together with their facilitator from the Ripat project – however as guided by certain crite-­‐‑
ria set by the project. The group made a list of how many from the group wished to receive dairy goats and make a solidarity chain in order to distribute goats over time. The farmers were taught about several factors influencing goat’s performance such as feeding, housing, improved breeding, treatments against diseases and parasites and record keeping. Zero-­‐‑grazing, feeding crop remains and planting (and feeding) elephant grass were some of the main subjects learned with re-­‐‑
spect to feeding management. Farmers who were to receive goats had to build a house for the goats, which was meant to be approved by the group before receiv-­‐‑
ing a goat. 6.1.4 Solidarity chain A solidarity chain (SC) is a tool for distributing technologies especially used in development projects. Heifer International is one of the first charity funds that established SC as a tool for providing livestock to local communities (de Haan, 2001). Ripat projects have been using this tool for distributing different technol-­‐‑
ogies, such as banana stools, dairy goats and pigs. Within Ripat 3 the SC for dairy goats was slightly different than what was described in section 5.3. It is based on distributing female offspring to other farmers within the chain, but male off-­‐‑
spring will have to be passed on under certain circumstances. The first five farm-­‐‑
ers in the chain each received a female goat as the project provides five female goats to each group. Each farmer with a female goat has to pass on the first two female offspring born. Until the two offspring have been passed on, the doe is owned by the group. After that, the doe belongs to the individual farmer. The two female offspring have to be passed on within four births. If no female offspring is born during the two first births (or during the two last births), the farmer has to pass on a male offspring, which will belong to the group. The group will often sell the male at the market and include the profit in the group profit, which it divided among members yearly. Some farmers end up passing on two male offspring or one of each gender due to this arrangement. 6.2 Methodology The data in this study were collected throughout a ten week stay in northern Tanzania from March 9 to May 16, 2015. Approximately 5 weeks in Arusha and 5 weeks in Endabash (Karatu). The data is based on 28 interviews with farmers from Ripat 3, four farmers groups, four Super Farmers/Group Leaders and two extension officers. Additionally, two interviews were made with farmers from Ripat 1 area, three interviews conducted in Babati from farmers being members of the breeding association TOBRA, as well as observations throughout all areas. 6.2.1 Data collection Qualitative semi-­‐‑structured interviews, observations and group activities were used for different purposes. Semi-­‐‑structured interviews were necessary for cre-­‐‑
39 ating a structure. Structure made the classification of answers within the 28 farmers easier due to the rather large number of interviews. The full question-­‐‑
naire, which was the base at interviewing individual farmers, is found in chapter 11 Appendix. Deviation from the structure was important for capturing varia-­‐‑
tions in individual answers for further development of questions and broadening the understanding of answers. Group activities were carried out to a limited ex-­‐‑
tend, namely for creating seasonal maps (table 12 and 13) and to create aware-­‐‑
ness and discussions about each farmer’s dairy goat management. Observations had a number of functions: getting familiar with the area and culture, under-­‐‑
standing farmers situations, creating individual-­‐‑specific questions, and making the local people comfortable with me as a foreigner. In this study observations had a broad understanding including; walking around in the villages alone or to-­‐‑
gether with interpreter, listening to group meetings, having a look around on farms. 6.2.2 Selection of interviewees The majority of data (interviews) were conducted with farmers who have dairy goats provided by Ripat and who have had the goats since 2009 or 2010. These interviewees are referred to as “farmers” in this chapter. Twenty-­‐‑eight farmers were interviewed. Four farmer groups, four Super Farmers/Group Leaders and two extension officers were interviewed. All these interviews were conducted in the Ripat 3 area. An interview with the Director of RECODA was conducted both before and after the data collection in Ripat 3 area. Before going to Ripat 3 in Karatu, 3 pre-­‐‑interviews of members of TOBRA (Toggenburg Breeding Associa-­‐‑
tion) in Babati were conducted in order to get experience of interviewing with interpreter and to refine the questionnaire. Also two farmers from Ripat 1 in Arumeru District were interviewed before heading to Karatu. The interviews in Ripat 1 were mainly made in order to understand a Ripat project and to see how farmers were managing after the project ended. Ripat 1 was established in 2006. All people interviewed were selected by the interpreter, who also functioned as a transporter due to the fact the he knows the area and people well because of his work as an extension officer. Additionally, he had a motorbike and Rockwool Foundation has employed him as interpreter for previous work in this area so he was familiar with the task. The interpreter was also one of the government EO in the area. My instructions to the interpreter in order for selecting interviewees were that I wanted to interview some of the very first, in each group, who re-­‐‑
ceived the dairy goats, also called first-­‐‑generation farmers of the solidarity chain. My plan before starting the interviews was that I wanted to interview each of the five farmers who received the first goats in eight groups. It turned out that some farmers did not have goats anymore, mainly due to death of the goats. Another fact I realised was that transport to remote villages consumed much of the allo-­‐‑
cated interview time. I chose to conduct fewer interviews in remote villages, but I still visited all eight villages in order to piece together a more complete picture of the project area. In some villages closer to our starting point village Endabash, I chose to interview farmers who were second-­‐‑generation of the solidarity chain, because only one or two of first-­‐‑generation still had the dairy goats. No selection between male and female farmers were made, neither were a selection of farm-­‐‑
ers of specific ages. 40 The farmer groups were selected by availability and interest. My interpreter was calling different group leaders to know when they were doing their weekly or monthly meeting and if they would like to participate. The groups who were meeting at such a time, who were possible for me to reach, I interviewed. To ensure the anonymity of the interviewees no names are provided and all re-­‐‑
spondents are given a reference number instead. 6.2.3 Conduction of the interview The interviews for the farmers were mostly structured and contained some ra-­‐‑
ther closed questions together with more open-­‐‑ended questions. Because of the qualitative approach the question order was individual according to the natural flow in the conversation. All interviews were taped, in order to give the inter-­‐‑
viewee maximum attention, assisted with short handwritten notes or drawings. Interviews with farmers were held in or around their home or in their fields and always included a walk around the farm for further observations and questions. When arriving at a farm I asked if the member of the Ripat group was home, which were either the husband or wife at the household. This person was prefer-­‐‑
able for the interview. At some interviews this person was not home and the spouse was interviewed if I believed this person was sufficiently knowledgeable about the goats and worked with their dairy goats from Ripat. If this was not the case the interview would not be conducted. Farmers involved in the research were aware of my presence in the area and the overall purpose of my work. One local farmer, who was also a Group Leader and Super Farmer in Ripat 3 and a local pastor talked with all groups before my arrival and encouraged them to make time to talk with me. Each day the interpreter and I made a plan for what group I wanted to visit and he would contact the group leader for making sure the first-­‐‑generation farmers were available. This did not always mean that all farmers had time when we got to the farm. This also contributed to the selection, because I would choose to go to other farmers. Interviews with farmer groups were conducted at their regular meeting place in continuation of their already scheduled meeting. Super Farmers and Group Leaders were interviewed alongside the farmer interviewed, if they also hap-­‐‑
pened to also be included in the interviewed farmer’s group. Some Group Lead-­‐‑
ers function as “gate-­‐‑keepers” to the farmers in his village or group and were, because of this, available for interview. The livestock EO was interviewed at his office and the interpreter (also an EO) was interviewed throughout the time of interview conduction. The interviews with the farmers lasted on average one hour with the shortest interview lasting 30 minutes and the longest two hours. The interview situations This section gives an impression of how the interviews were conducted in prac-­‐‑
tise. Some pictures of interview situations are given, which also contribute to the understanding of the environmental frame in which the interviews were con-­‐‑
ducted. The specific situations of each interview influenced the flow of an inter-­‐‑
view. Some were indoors in quiet surroundings only including the farmer, the 41 interpreter and myself, whereas others were outside with children running around and neighbours visiting. The majority of the farmers did not speak any English and therefor a male inter-­‐‑
preter, who was also an extension officer in the area, translated the English ques-­‐‑
tion to Swahili or Iraqw (local tribe language) for the farmers. I had no require-­‐‑
ments of where any interviews were held as long as recording was possible (sit-­‐‑
ting outside in strong wind could diminish the quality of the recording). Often other family members or neighbours would act as audiences, which I allowed since I did not see this audience as potentially restricting the farmers’ answers. Sometimes it people from the “audience” interfered or answered the questions, especially if a “gate-­‐‑keeper” was following us around. I would be as polite as pos-­‐‑
sible and ask the farmers to answer questions from his or her own point of view and I did not note the answers given by any other than the interviewed farmer. At some farms both the husband and wife was present and I had a mix of an-­‐‑
swers from both of them. I chose to allow this because I found that the roles be-­‐‑
tween husband and wife are different between households. In some households the spouse who was not within the Ripat group would have the daily responsibil-­‐‑
ity of the dairy goats; for others it was the member of Ripat who takes care of dairy the goats and in others they both have responsibilities. 6.2.4 Language and translation Interviews were made in the language that farmers found most comfortable. The interpreter could speak both the local language of the area Iraqw, and the official language of Tanzania, Swahili. Sometimes the two languages were mixed in order for farmers to understand the meaning of my questions. The local language does not necessarily contain all the technical terms of agriculture, or the farmer had only learned the language through hearing it being talked by others. The local tribal languages are not taught in school, only Swahili. An interview might start out in Iraqw where questions are more formal and straightforward, e.g. “How many people live in this household?” or “What crops are you growing?”, and when the questions got more technical about the dairy goats, e.g. “Do you use specific criteria when selecting the breeding buck?” or “How old are female offspring when mated the first time?”, the interpreter would talk with the farmers in Swahili if they did not understand the question in Iraqw. The interpreter chose what lan-­‐‑
guage to speak as long as the farmers understood the questions correctly. I spent much time with my interpreter talking about the questions to make sure he un-­‐‑
derstood my purpose with the questions. Some misunderstandings were ex-­‐‑
pected through the interviews due to the language barriers. My impression was that farmers did not like to say they did not understand the question or recall what I am asking for and were answering anyway. Sometimes my interpreter would tell me in English that the farmer did not recall even though he or she gave an answer. He could tell by the way they were an-­‐‑
swering him. Sometimes I would ask the question in a different way to make them better understand the purpose or I would ask other questions that con-­‐‑
nected with the first question and after that cross-­‐‑reference make sure they matched, e.g. “How many offspring has your doe given birth to in total?” (first 42 number). “Have any died?” “Can you tell how many offspring you have sold or slaughtered?” “How many offspring are you currently keeping?” (second number, did not always match the first). A great deal of trust had to be placed with the in-­‐‑
terpreter, as he was the one providing all the answers. Due to his employment as an extension officer he had much knowledge on what the farmers should do and this may have interfered with his interpretation as he wanted to make the farm-­‐‑
ers look good. Due to my moderate understanding of Swahili, I could follow the conversations to some extent. I would ask the interpreter for a more adequate interpretation if I found that he was leaving things out. He could have been doing that on purpose because he thought something was not relevant to my work or because he was tired or not concentrating. Due to the fact that I would need an interpreter and that this interpreter did not have training as an interpreter, I chose to make more direct and rather closed questions to get more simple answers, which were easy to interpret. I therefore included some open questions, which would lead the conversation in whatever direction the answer was. The open questions re-­‐‑
quired, to a greater extent, more precise interpretation especially because these questions made farmers think and come forth with long answers. If the inter-­‐‑
preter did not give me the correct interpretation I would get a different impres-­‐‑
sion and ask questions in a different way or not ask any additional questions. I was working very much on my own in my stay in Karatu and Endabash. When I went back to Arusha and the organisation RECODA to discuss my findings in the field I got assistance to evaluate the interpretation, whether there was anything left out or major mistakes. The trouble was that no workers at the office spoke they Iraqw language. They all belong to different tribes and had a very different language. 7 Results In this chapter the results of the interviews and observations are presented. The chapter begins with a description of the farmers and their farms in order to pre-­‐‑
sent the interviewees to the reader. After that, data from individual interviews and group interviews are analysed through the concept of food security and ca-­‐‑
pacity building. Availability, accessibility and stability are the dimensions of food security used in this analyse. Capacity building analyse is used for further under-­‐‑
standing of the stability dimension in food security as well as for identifying and revealing social relations and constructions involving the introduced dairy goats. 7.1 Farmers and their production General demographic information for each farmers and the total HH is provided in this chapter. Information on crops and livestock kept on the farms are de-­‐‑
scribed as well. All HHs included both husband and wife, except for one HH, which was run by a widow. In all HH’s with husband and wife, the husband was the head of the HH. In two cases the female was head of the HH. This was due to the fact that her 43 husband was married to more than one wife and they lived in separate houses. Fourteen women and fourteen men were interviewed with an age range of 30 to 78 and an average age of 47 years. An overview of data on the farmers is pre-­‐‑
sented in table 8. The widow (F2) was the oldest farmer and she also had a small HH with four members in total. Two other HH’s also included only four members (F21 and F28), both of them below the average age of the farmers, 40 and 33 years respectively. The total HH size ranged between 4 and 12 members and 7,5 being the median. 26 farmers had some education where the highest education being secondary school (F17) whereas the rest had various degrees of primary school. Two farmers had no education at all (F9 and F18). Both were females and had a total HH size above the median, ten and nine members respectively. The farmer with highest education level (F17), form 2, was a female and is included in the second largest HH (eleven members). 18 of 28 HH consisted of more than two adults. One HH (F5) had no children. The head of the HH (husband) was of-­‐‑
ten of the oldest generation together with his wife, which means that grandpar-­‐‑
ents were rarely living in the HH. The parents of the husband in the HH were liv-­‐‑
ing in a separate house close by, and had a separate HH. The general way for sons to attend their own farmland and HH is by receiving a share of the father’s farmland. When the father wants to “retire” the youngest son will often stay at the farm to take care of him and the mother. Table 8 -­‐‑ Farmer description of the 28 farmers involved in individual interviews Group Ref. No. G Age Notes HH status 1 F1 M 52 No goats H 1 F2 F 78 1 F3 F 43 2 F4 M 45 2 F5 M 3 F6 3 F7 3 Marital status Education Total HH Adult Children M Pri 10 2 8 H W Pri 4 2 2 SH M Pri 8 4 4 H M Pri 9 4 5 71 H M Pri 5 5 0 M 57 H M Pri 10 6 4 M 42 H M Pri 10 3 7 F8 F 42 H * M Pri 7 1 6 3 F9 F 47 S G SH M No 10 7 3 4 F10 F 53 SH M Pri 7 5 2 4 F11 M 46 H M Pri 7 3 4 4 F12 M 53 H M Pri 6 2 4 5 F13 M 43 H M Pri 10 4 6 5 F14 M 40 S G H M Pri 7 3 4 5 F15 F 42 H * M Pri 6 2 4 5 F16 F 30 SH M Pri 6 2 4 6 F17 F 53 SH M Sec 11 6 5 7 F18 F 58 SH M No 9 5 4 8 F19 M 39 H M Pri 8 2 6 8 F20 F 35 SH M Pri 12 4 8 8 F21 F 40 S G SH M Pri 4 3 1 9 F22 F 39 SH M Pri 8 5 3 9 F23 F 46 SH M Pri 6 3 3 44 9 F24 F 51 S G SH M Pri 8 6 2 10 10 F25 F 42 S G H M Pri 5 2 3 F26 M 56 S G H M Pri 9 5 4 11 F27 F 30 SH M Pri 7 2 5 11 F28 M 33 H M Pri 4 2 2 47 8 Average * Husband has more than one wife Ref.No. =Reference number applied to ensure anonymity G = Gender: M= Male; F = Female Notes: S G = Second generation in solidarity chain HH status: H = head of HH; SH = Spouse is head of HH Marital status: M = married; W = Widow Education: No = No education; Pri = primary school (farmers had finished between 4 to 7 years in school); Sec = Secondary school (9 years in school) Total HH: Total number of members within the household Adult: ≥18 years of age Children: <18 years of age All HH’s had both livestock and crop production and they all had at least three types of livestock and crops on the farm. The average land owned by the family was five acres, but it was ranging from one to sixteen acres. Local cattle and dairy cattle (including crossbreeds) are in this context seen as two different live-­‐‑
stock and the same applies for goats. All dairy goats within this analyse refers to goats provided by Ripat. 27 of the interviewed farmers had Ripat goats at present time. The farms includ-­‐‑
ed between 3 and 7 different types of livestock and 5 averages. The ranging of crops on the farms was wider and ranged between 3 and 9 and had an average on 6. Maize, pigeon peas, dairy goats and poultry were observed at all farms. More than 80 % of the farmers were growing beans and were keeping local cat-­‐‑
tle. See table 9 for a full overview of percentage of farmers growing the seven most frequent crops and keeping the five most frequent species including differ-­‐‑
ences between local and dairy species of cows and goats. Table 9 -­‐‑ Percentage of farmers applying specific Production types on their farm Production % Crops grown on majority of farms Maize 100 Pigeon pea 100 Beans 86 Sunflower 71 Sorghum 57 Banana 57 Livestock kept by majority of farmers Dairy goats 100 Poultry 100 Local cattle 81 Local goats 78 Sheep 70 Pigs 44 Dairy cows 41 % = Percentage of total farmers. For crops = 28 farmers, for livestock 27 farmers. 45 Number of farmers
Besides the provided crops in table 9, a minority of farmers (< 35 %) mentioned growing; fruit trees, fodder crops, cassava, cow pea, sweet potato, finger millet, lablab, flowers or vegetables. In addition to what farmers mentioned as crops growing on their farm, majority of them is expected to grow green leaved plants used as vegetable. This plant is similar to spinach in colour and taste (it was served with ugali at many farms after an interview). Some farmers were keeping other animals than what is presented in table 9 they also categorized as livestock in the interview, such as donkey, dog, duck and guinea pig. All of these other an-­‐‑
imals were mention by a minority of the farmers (< 15 %). Farmers had on aver-­‐‑
age 12 local goats and 4 dairy goats. The number of animals within other live-­‐‑
stock species was observed widely ranging, but not fully investigated. Farmers were asked to rank the three most important crops and livestock on their farm. The criteria for ranking were based on farmer’s own perception. Some farmers could not rank their livestock and said they were equally im-­‐‑
portant, but they could all rank their crops after importance. Farmers made more similar ranking of crops (chart 1) compared with the ranking of livestock (chart 2). In general maize was the most important crop and pigeon pea and beans were ranked second by most farmers. The third most important crop was more wide spread among farmers. 25
20
15
Rank 1
10
Rank 2
5
Rank 3
0
Chart 1 -­‐‑ Ranking of the three most important crops according to farmers own perception The most important livestock was mainly divided between dairy goats, cattle, dairy cattle or all cattle. Some farmers would not distinguish between cattle types in terms of importance, which is illustrated in the “all cattle” category. The same applies to goats. Pigs and Ripat goats are some of the preferred livestock as ranking second most important. Chickens and indigenous goats or cattle are some of the prevalent livestock for ranking third most important. 46 Number of farmers
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
0
Rank 1
Rank 2
Rank 3
Chart 2 -­‐‑ Ranking of the three most important livestock according to farmers own perception 1.1.1 Ripat technologies Dairy goats were one of many technologies provided by the project and all the interviewed farmers had several technologies applied on their farms. The tech-­‐‑
nologies included a variety of crops and livestock. The most widespread crop among farmers was bananas followed by pigeon pea (chart 3). For cassava, lablab and soybeans farmers were only growing the Ripat sort. Maize, which was the most widespread crop among farmers together with pigeon peas, was mainly grown from traditional or other sorts than Ripat, only 21 % of farmers were growing Ripat maize. Besides keeping Ripat goats, 11 farmers were also keeping pigs introduced by Ripat (chart 4), which is 92 % of all farmers keeping pigs. The number of farmers keeping Ripat poultry is consid-­‐‑
erably less with only 8 farmers keeping Ripat poultry. All 27 farmers were keep-­‐‑
ing poultry and thereby only 30 % of poultry was Ripat version. % of farmers
100
80
60
40
20
0
Ripat %
Any variety %
Chart 3 – Presentation of crops where farmers were keeping either a variety introduced by Ripat (blue) or local variety (red). Both percentages are of the total number of farmers (28) 47 % of farmers
100
50
0
Ripat %
Any variety %
Milking goats
Pigs
Poultry
Chart 4 – Presentation of livestock where farmers were keeping either an introduced breed by Ripat (blue) or a local breed (red). Both percentages are of the total number of farmers keeping dairy goats (27). 7.2 Food security The data were analysed through a food security framework. Based on the data collected, the main focus of the four dimensions in food security are on availabil-­‐‑
ity, accessibility and stability. 7.2.1 Availability Milk production is the main desired performance outcome from dairy goats and it depends on a number of influencing factors. Besides milk production, repro-­‐‑
duction and robustness are also performance outcomes which need to be con-­‐‑
sidered in order to evaluate the milk production. Influencing factors are in this context: feeding, housing, breeding and other management factors. Milk production requires a producing doe and regular reproduction (breeding with male) in order to continue milk production. In this chapter data on the pre-­‐‑
sent milk production is described, followed by a chapter describing the repro-­‐‑
duction status. Milk production On 12 of 27 farms there were does which were currently dairy. Two farmers did not have any does and the rest of the farmers (13) had one or more does, which were not dairy at the time of interview. The length of lactation was very diverse and not all farmers had a fixed lactation length for the does. Neither did they have a concrete strategy for weaning of kids and period for next gestation. Farm-­‐‑
ers were asked to give an estimate of how many months, during the year, they had milk available from their Ripat goats. The most frequent value was 6 months answered by 5 famers, followed by 3, 4 and 8 months all answered by 4 farmers each (see chart 5). 5 farmers had more than one doe. Lactation length for each doe was mainly no longer than 6 months, which means that farmers having milk for more than 6 months have multiple does. The longest lactation registered for one doe was 8 months. This lactation length occurred only once and does gener-­‐‑
ally had lactation periods of 2 to 6 months with an average length of 4 months. 48 Number of farmers
6
4
2
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
Months per year Chart 5 – Number of months per year farmers had milk available from goats Milk availability throughout the year varies great among farmers according to the lactation periods in chart 5. All interviewed farmers where asked whether they had milk for HH consumption for the rest of the year (besides that from the Ripat goats) and where the milk came from. All farmers said that they got milk in other months as well. Mainly the milk came from their indigenous cattle and some farmers said they bought milk either from neighbours or from shops. All farmers answered that the does were milked twice a day, in the morning and evening. Some farmers said they got 0,5 litres and others had 2 litres of milk available each day. Most farmers experience an increase in milk yields from first to third and fourth lactation. Some farmers also say that the yields decrease through the lactation, mainly when dairy more than four months. The kids are allowed milk through the first three months of lactation. This amount is in addi-­‐‑
tion to the milk farmers have available. The doe’s actual milk production was higher than the 0.5 to 2 litres because of the suckling of kids. Farmers did not register the milk yield and collection of milk was made in buckets, pots, bottles or whatever was available. This made an actual measurement of milk production difficult and data is based on farmer’s own memory and estimation. Reproduction When farmers are breeding their doe it results in lactation period and a new generation of goats with their own genetic potential. As mentioned earlier, not all farmers had does on their farm. Farmers with no doe at the time of interview had offspring from this doe. Some farmers did not know the age of their Ripat doe because they did not receive any papers together with the goat. When dairy goats was first provided in 2009 it has been assumed that female goats were one year old. This means that farmers who still have the Ripat goat, are seven years old when interviews were conducted in 2015. The average age of the does was 4.6 years, as can be seen in table 10. Table 10 -­‐‑ Overview of the average of several reproduction categories on data from 27 individual interviews with farmers Average of 27 farms Number of does Age of doe (years) Times given birth AFK (days) KI (days) Litter size Gender ratio offspring (male:female, %) 1 4.6 4.4 411 288 1.4 51:49 49 When farmers were asked if they still had the doe received from Ripat, 37% said that the doe has been replaced. KI is calculated on the basis of the age of the doe and times given birth. AFK is based on age for first mating adding five months gestation. The age for first mating of female offspring was a difficult question to many farmers. They have difficulties remembering or knowing the age, and only 17 farmers answered this question. The lowest age mentioned was 5 months and the oldest age at mating was 12 months, which lead to an average first mating age close to nine months (8.7). When all registered offspring were collected it gave a ratio for male to female is fifty-­‐‑fifty approximately. Robustness This performance outcome is related to the health of goats and their ability to adapt to certain environments. This is expressed by a mortality rate. During the interviews farmers were asked how many goats have died divided into two categories: whether the Ripat doe they received was still alive (Ripat goat in table 11) and how many of the total offspring had died (table 11). The offspring mortality is 21.1 per cent. Table 11 -­‐‑ Statistics on death of mother animals and offspring among the 27 farmers Death Number % Ripat goat (doe) 10 37 Total number of offspring 53 21 Death only include unintended death, and sold or slaughtered offspring is not included Influencing factors Feeding Dairy goats are fed with a number of components, where as the main compo-­‐‑
nents are grasses (non-­‐‑specified), elephant grass (Pennisetum purpureum), weeds found among crops on the farm, tree leaves (wild trees), residues from produced crops and supplementing concentrate such as brans and sunflower cake. No farmers were practising exactly the same feeding management, but some general features were found during the interviews. What farmers fed dairy goats with depended largely on weather seasons, which determents availability of the different feed components. In the rainy season goats are mainly feed only grasses and weeds from their fields. Farmers who practise zero-­‐‑grazing had all, to some degree, planted elephant grass in boundaries and other unused areas of their farm as addition to the grasses growing wild. When the dry season is extreme as in November to January in Karatu area, no grasses or weeds as such, are availa-­‐‑
ble on the farm. Leaves from trees (not owned by farmers themselves), crop res-­‐‑
idues and supplementing feeds are used when grasses are not so available. Three groups were asked to list all the feed components they use for dairy goats throughout a year as well as the availability and common use of each feed com-­‐‑
ponent. The results are provided in table 12 and 13. Table 12 includes data from 50 two different groups. Due to the many similarities between answers from the two groups, the data is presented in one total table. The two tables are provided for illustrating differences in available feed and feeding management (storing) because of climate differences, in this case differences in altitude. Table 12 illus-­‐‑
trates the lowland at a low altitude and table 13 illustrates the highland at higher altitude. In general the land in highland is more fertile because they receive more rain than in lowland. Table 12 – Data combined from two groups in lowland (with relative low precipitation). Group 8 and 9 on annual availability of feed components and when they are mainly fed. Feed component Feed shortage Grasses and weed Tree leaves Elephant grass Residues from banana Residues from Pigeon pea Residues from maize Brans (maize+wheat) Sunflower cake Kitchen residues Zero Grazing Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x X = most frequently use of feed component X = When some from the group use the component Table 13 – Data from one group (group 4) in highland on annual availability of feed components and when they are mainly fed. Feed sort Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Feed shortage x x x x x x x x x Grasses and weed Tree leaves Elephant grass Residues from banana Residues from Pigeon pea Residues from maize Brans (maize+wheat) Sunflower cake Kitchen residues Zero grazing x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x X = most frequently use of feed component X = When some from the group use the component Some main differences are found between the feed availability over the year. At table 12 they say they practise zero-­‐‑grazing from January to May, and for the rest of the year they practise free grazing. In table 13 no one is practicing zero-­‐‑
grazing. When they were asked for reasons not to practise zero-­‐‑grazing some 51 farmers said, there was lots of grasses and leaves available close to their farms, so it was easy to grass the goats freely. Some said that they do not practise zero-­‐‑
grazing because it was difficult to find enough feed to satisfy the goats where as other said that the extra time this practise demanded was difficult to meet, when they had many other tasks on the farm. In table 13 they were more consistently on providing supplementing feed all year round, in terms of brans and sunflower cake compared with table 12. In table 13 they are drying and storing pigeon pea residues in order to be able to provide this all year round as well. All groups generally agree on when they can feed with elephant grass and wild grown grasses and weeds being from January to July/August. Leaves from wild grown trees are available throughout the year in general and feed shortage is mainly found in October to December, which is same time as when the dry sea-­‐‑
son is extreme. Table 13 shows farmers are using kitchen residues as a supple-­‐‑
ment to the feed ration for the dairy goats. These residues contained mainly left-­‐‑
overs from ugali or makande1, which were some of the main components in the HH dinner. The kitchen residues are given at the same time as the farmers are doing the evening dairy (it makes the doe stand still when milking), or it is given after milking as a supplement to the feed ration. None of the groups mentioned leaves from planted fodder trees as a used feed component, even though this was one of the feeding technologies taught to the farmers by Ripat. Housing In this context housing includes the grazing management. Zero-­‐‑grazing was promoted by Ripat and free grazing was the traditional management way. These two grazing systems have different requirements to housing. Zero-­‐‑grazing re-­‐‑
quires a individual housing system for Ripat goats to be keep at all time. Free grazing requires a collective boma for all livestock to be kept at night. Different versions of each system and combinations of the systems were seen among the farmers. The farmers were asked if they were practising zero-­‐‑grazing, and for how many months during a year they were practising it. In table 14 the distribution of the answers from 25 farmers are found. Table 14 -­‐‑ Distribution of farmers regarding the zero-­‐‑grazing system Zero grazing system All year 6-­‐‑9 months 3 months Half/half each day No Total No 4 7 1 7 6 25 % 16 28 4 28 24 100 Half/half each day = practising both tethering and bring feed to goats, and grazing freely, at the same day 1 Ugali commonly contains maize flour cooked in boiling water into a dough-­‐‑like consistency. Makande contains boiled corn and bean made into a stew. 52 Zero-­‐‑grazing can be practised by keeping goats in a shed at all times or by tether-­‐‑
ing them to a fixed pole during the day and kept in a shed during the night. Four farmers out of 25 (16%) answered they practise zero-­‐‑grazing all year round, but these answers were hard to verify. Later on in the chapter a description of three of these farmers’ feeding management is made. The rest of the farmers answer-­‐‑
ing in table 14 are to some extend or not at all practising zero-­‐‑grazing. Whether these classifications are reliable for all the farmers at all times is doubtful. Be-­‐‑
cause the farmers were taught about zero-­‐‑grazing and the benefits of this, they want to say that they are practising it, even though the reality is different. When farmers were asked why they did not practise zero-­‐‑grazing, many reasons were given; the goat shed is broken or not good enough, it takes too much time to find and bring feed to the goats, it is difficult to find enough feed to satisfy the goats, it is easier to mix the goats with the rest of the animals on the farm, which are already doing free grazing and there is no difference in the milk production when practising zero-­‐‑grazing and free grazing. In my perception the most wide-­‐‑
spread reasons for the farmers not to practising zero-­‐‑grazing was regarding the feeding issues, that farmers were not able to satisfy the feeding requirements of the goats through zero-­‐‑grazing. This practise was different to how they keep other livestock and the farmers found it easier to mix dairy goats with other live-­‐‑
stock and practise free grazing. Often the sheds were not solid and good enough for them to house the goats for zero-­‐‑grazing, which was also seen on some farms. This forced the farmers to graze the goats freely. Maybe some years ago the goats were actually in a zero-­‐‑grazing system, but now they are mainly grazing them freely. The farmers who were practising zero-­‐‑grazing were asked why they were doing this. During the interviews and observations on the farms only three of the four farmers was convincing about practising zero-­‐‑grazing all year round. Farmer A: “Because Recoda told us to do this and I want to do what I was taught.” Farmer B: “The milk yield is high when I do the zero-­‐‑grazing. I do not find it diffi-­‐‑
cult to get enough feed for my goats” Farmer C: “It is good not to mix the dairy goats with goats or animals from other farms because of risk for getting diseases and it is easier to supplement (red. feed supplement) only the dairy goats when they are in need.” These three farmers were practising zero grazing in three different ways. Farmer A had a proper shed where the doe was kept day and night. The feed trough was placed outside the shed to avoid contamination from the manure. The feed could be reached from inside the shed. The doe was having one kid at the time and an older male kid was tethered to a tree on the farm. There was both a shed and an outside area for the doe, which allows the farmers to separate the kid from the doe e.g. at weaning. Farmer B had a bigger shed, which was housing one doe, two kids and one buck. The goats have to go outside the shed to be fed. Sometimes they were allowed walking around the closest areas of the farm. This was more for activity than for feeding. 53 Farmer C did not have a shed at the time as it was broken because of a storm. The goats were kept in a certain area (field) close to the houses on the farm during the day. They were often not tethered but mainly just looked after. They were fed in the field in feed troughs and on the ground. At night they were kept in a boma together with other livestock. Farmer A Farmer B Farmer C Environment Most farmers had a permanent house for the dairy goats, separating them from the other animals of the farm. But farmers were mainly using this house during the night, and during the day the goats would to various degrees get mixed with the other animals on the farm. The quality of the houses varied greatly, which meant that goats were mixed with the other animals because that housing was better and safer. The majority of farmers were practising free grazing at various density mixed with zero-­‐‑grazing. Breeding Controlled breeding is supporting a certain quality and expected milk production of the dairy goats. Controlling the breeding includes only breeding among same dairy goat breed and making sure the degree of inbreeding is low. The groups received two breeding bucks, which were used to make a controlled breeding of Ripat dairy goats. Farmers were asked what buck(s) they used for mating and, as seen in table 15, farmers are not only using the two breeding bucks within their group (Own group). Farmers are mainly using bucks within their own group, but as many farmers are using other group member’s private bucks (38%) as farm-­‐‑
ers using the appointed breeding bucks owned by the group (38%). Some farm-­‐‑
ers (21%) own a breeding buck, which they have bought or made a permanent swop of males with another farmer. The motivation for having one’s own buck is to all farmers, availability. The buck is on the farm when needed and if pregnan-­‐‑
cy fails a second mating is easy to perform. 54 Table 15 -­‐‑ Farmers buck selection in breeding Buck used for mating No % Group 11 38 Group member's private 11 38 Private owned 6 Other group's 1 Total 29 21 3 100 27 farmers has answered this question and two farmers are using two different selection choices Whenever a farmer did not own a buck, one had to go and ask for borrowing a buck, either within the group (Own group + Group member’s private) or in a dif-­‐‑
ferent group (Other group’s). The buck usually stayed on the farm for three or four days, and the farmers borrowing the buck feeds and takes care of the buck in the meantime. The borrowing farmers were transporting the buck back and forth from where it belongs. No farmers or groups were charging farmers for us-­‐‑
ing the buck, as long as the farmers were within the Ripat project. The first group bucks were provided to the groups in 2009. Many of the original breeding-­‐‑bucks are deceased and farmers said that ageing or diseases were the main reasons. Some groups have replaced the bucks for this group to continue to have a concerted breeding choice. Other groups had not replaced the bucks which means farmers were using alternatives. Other reasons for choosing alter-­‐‑
natives, according to the interviewed farmers, were easier access to neighbour bucks, better control with own buck, easier with own buck and agreement with other group on using each other’s bucks. None of the farmers were keeping records on the breeding, kidding or milk yields. Farmers said there was no need for keeping records because they can re-­‐‑
member the information in their head. Some farmers said they were not able to read and write and some farmers simply do not keep records. When farmers are not using the group bucks, they have more freedom to select, which requires some kind of criteria. All farmers were asked what criteria they were using when choosing a buck for mating and the majority of farmers were giving “size of the buck” as their main selection criteria. Five of 23 farmers answered they had no selection criteria because they could not choose the buck themselves. Other cri-­‐‑
teria mentioned by farmers were no horns, expected milk production, looks beautiful, history of twinning, is a Ripat buck, history of female offspring, not re-­‐‑
lated to the doe, not aggressive and short distance to buck. 1 to 4 farmers men-­‐‑
tioned each of these secondary criteria. Three farmers said they selected bucks from “expected milk yield” criteria, but because most farmers have several criteria, only one farmer had expected milk yield a top priority. This farmer had his own breeding buck. He traded one of his male offspring, when it became mature, with another farmer’s buck, which had a history of high-­‐‑yielding female offspring. 55 Throughout the individual farmer interviews it was difficult to picture certain reproduction strategies among farmers. When farmers were asked at what age female offspring are mated the first time, and how often does are mated most farmers found these questions difficult to answer. They were spending much time on thinking and trying to remember, or they needed the questions re-­‐‑
phrased. Farmers were also asked how many times their doe(s) had given birth, gender of all offspring and how old the doe(s) were. All these questions are con-­‐‑
nected and together they provide a general impression of the reproduction per-­‐‑
formance among the farmers. If a farmer had more than one doe, it was offspring from the first doe received through Ripat. Solidarity chain This social construction of “passing on the gift” was constructed by the Ripat pro-­‐‑
ject. The farmers within each group were managing the SC themselves (without help or support from Ripat or other organizations) at the time of interview. Farmers were in general satisfied with the SC as a solution for distributing goats in the group, but not with the “speed” of the chain. When they were asked for reasons to this lack of “speed”, they said it was due to the many male offspring being born. The solidarity chain is build up by passing on female offspring, so too many male offspring will “slow down” the chain. Each farmer with dairy goats who was interviewed was asked how many offspring were born in total and of what gender, since they received the Ripat goat. In total 251 offspring with a ra-­‐‑
tio of male:female at 51:49%. None of the SC were ended at the time of interview. Information on status on the goat solidarity chain was found in 10 groups, which, in table 16, is compared with data from project monitoring data provided by Ves-­‐‑
terager (2013). Table 16 – Information on the goat solidarity chain in 10 groups from Ripat 3. Information from 2013 by Vesterager, 2013 and 2015 information are made from interviews with group leaders or super farmers in each group Group 2013 R W Total % R 2015 R W Total % R 1 G 12 10 22 55 G 26 4 30 87 2 G 13 10 23 57 G 21 2 23 91 3 G 15 3 18 83 G 15 3 18 83 4 G 14 7 21 67 G 19 5 24 79 5 G 21 8 29 72 S 23 6 29 79 6 G 14 16 30 47 G 25 5 30 83 7 G 6 18 24 25 S 8 G 14 2 16 88 G 16 1 17 94 9 G 16 17 33 49 G 19 10 29 66 10 G 14 12 26 11 15 26 14 24 54 59 G 19 25 42 78 Average R = Received a goat W = Waiting on goat Total = All members registered in the chain G = S-­‐‑C is still going on S = S-­‐‑C has stopped 56 Some progress was observed within a two years timeframe. From 2013 to 2015 the average percentage of farmers who had received a goat was increased from 59 to 78 percentages. None of the chains had ended, but four groups had less than five people (1/5 of the average group size in 2015) waiting for a goat. This result was observed at group 1, 2, 3 and 8. One group had stopped the SC be-­‐‑
tween 2013 and 2015. The reason for this group to stop was that too many does had died. Three out of the five first female goats they received had died, which made the spreading of the offspring too slow and too difficult for the group want-­‐‑
ing to continue, they groups leader of this group mentioned. All goat SC’s started in 2009, which means they have been on going for six year when data was collected. No concrete timeframe for finishing the chains was ex-­‐‑
pected from the implementing organisation, but according to project coordinator of Rockwool Foundation Vesterager (2015), the observed timeframe on the chains not having finished yet, is slower than expected. No calculations on ex-­‐‑
pected time frame of when SC will end is rooted in the frame of which this tech-­‐‑
nology is provided. An attempt on calculating a theoretically timeframe of the SC is presented in ta-­‐‑
ble 17. The calculation is based on selected values found in this study, which will make the calculations as close as possible to reality, despite its simplicity. Table 17 – Values taken from the case study for creating a theoretical timeframe of the SC. Selected values Number of members of SC Number of does per farmer AFK (days) KI (days) Litter size Gender ratio offspring, % Mortality rate, % 25 1 411 288 1.4 50 21 Many factors influence the duration of time from beginning the SC to an assumed finish of the chain. A very simplified calculation on the time frame is presented below. All values except litter size are rounded to one-­‐‑decimal numbers. The to-­‐‑
tal time calculated before 25 members have received a goat is calculated to be 4 years, when rounding to nearest decimal. With a starting point in one doe’s reproduction, the time for when two female offspring is passed on is calculated. Included in this calculation is the assumption that as soon as a female offspring is passed on it is included in the total SC. This female offspring will contribute to the chain 411 days after being passed on (AFK). SC calculations Definitions: MG = Mother goat F1 = 1. Generation offspring F2 = 2. Generation offspring KI = kidding interval 57 LS = litter size AFK = Age at first kidding T = Time The SC is provided with 5 female goats from the beginning. Time for a MG to pass on 1 female offspring: 𝐾𝐼
𝑇, 1𝐹% =
= 206 𝑑𝑎𝑦𝑠 𝐿𝑆
The time for one F1x to be born has to be added twice, in order to ensure a F1F (female offspring) being born because of the gender ratio: 𝑇, 1𝐹%3 = 𝑇, 1𝐹% ∗ 2 = 411 𝑑𝑎𝑦𝑠 Adjusting for mortality rate: 𝑇, 1𝐹%3,678 = 𝑇, 1𝐹%3 ∗ 0.21 + 𝑇, 1𝐹%3 = 498 𝑑𝑎𝑦𝑠 𝑇, 2𝐹%3,678 = 𝑇, 1𝐹%3,678 ∗ 2 = 996 𝑑𝑎𝑦𝑠 The MG has now each passed on 2 female offspring to the chain, which in total provides 10 new goats to the chain. Time for the first F1F (female offspring) to pass on 2 female offspring: 𝑇, 1𝐹=3 = 𝑇, 1𝐹%3,678 + 𝐴𝐹𝐾 = 909 𝑑𝑎𝑦𝑠 𝑇, 2𝐹=3 = 𝑇, 1𝐹=3 + 𝑇, 1𝐹%3,678 = 1407 𝑑𝑎𝑦𝑠 Each first F1 has at this time passed on 2 female offspring to the chain, which in total provides additionally 10 new goats to the chain. In total 25 goats have been distributed to farmers through the SC in 1407 days or approximately 4 years and thereby the SC do not need to carry one. Only if the farmers want this to happen they can continue. The calculations are vulnerable and changing one factor can easily change the total timeframe greatly. For in-­‐‑
stance if a MG dies the supply form this goat stops. This also means that the ear-­‐‑
lier a goat die in the SC, the greater is the effect on total amount of goats available in the chain. At the time of data collection the SC had been going on for six years and the theoretically SC are finished in four years, which means the actual timeframe is already extended with one third of the timeframe. Diseases and prevention Farmers who experienced death of offspring were asked for reasons for these deaths. Some farmers say the offspring died from a disease. No farmers could tell any specific diseases, only that the offspring died from a disease. Some farmers said the offspring were stillborn or dead by abortion and some farmers did not know the reason for the death. One farmer mentioned that the death of an off-­‐‑
spring was due to an accident. They had left a bucket with deworming liquid on the floor, which the offspring drank from. 58 The farmers were asked what they do to keep goats healthy and what they do to prevent diseases and when goats got sick. The three answers given most fre-­‐‑
quently, in numerically descending order, was; drenching with acaricide to pre-­‐‑
vent tick-­‐‑borne diseases, providing good and enough feed and separating Ripat goats from other livestock. Also providing minerals and/or salt lick blocks were mentioned as initiatives. Farmers were asked what they do if a Ripat goat does get sick and most of them said they call the local EO. Some farmers also treat the goats themselves or get assistance through the group SF for goats/para-­‐‑
veterinarian. Some farmers said that they tried a drug, ordinated by the EO, on sick animals but the treatment failed and the animal died. Others said that they called the EO, but when he came it was too late for treatment, and the animal died. Many farmers mention mixing Ripat goats with animals outside the farm is a key reason to getting diseases and most of them try to avoid this happening. Some farmers isolate the goats even more, by not mixing them with any other livestock on the farm. This precaution is very much related to the general management of the goats, which will be further described in the next section. Other management factors This section focuses on other choices and challenges farmers were dealing with. Water is one of the limiting factors in Ripat 3. The project was extended with one year due to water limitations. Farmers were asked how they provided water for their goats and how often the goats were offered water. Most farmers brought water to the Ripat goats and provided water for them once or twice a day. Two farmers out of 25 answered they were providing water by taking the goats to the nearest river, most likely together with the other live-­‐‑
stock. Two other farmers said they both provide water at home and away from home, depending on how difficult the water was to bring home. If the nearest river or distributions point dries out, the distance to water can become very far and make the transport (by foot) from home difficult. 21 farmers answered they always bring water home to the goats, mainly to avoid mixing with other farmers livestock. The water came from either a river/lake or a local distribution point, which could be an actual water tap or a hole in the ground where groundwater seeps up. Farmers were asked how often the goats were offered water. Providing water once or twice a day was the answer from the majority of farmers and two farmers said the goats had access to water ad libitum. Challenges of keeping Ripat goats were one of the open questions, which could be asked in different ways and in several stages of the interview. There was an expectation from the beginning that water would be one of the limiting factors for farmers to keep the Ripat goats. Whenever farmers were asked or talked about challenges with goat production water was rarely mentioned. When farm-­‐‑
ers were asked which tasks or duties, related to Ripat goats, were taking up most of the caretaker’s time, water was never mentioned. To avoid wild carnivore attacks, goats were kept indoors during the nights. Some farmers have a separate house or area for the Ripat goats, other mix them with 59 their other livestock. During the day the goats are kept in their separate area, which can also include a tethering a fixed place or they are grazing freely. They can be grazing freely separated from other animals or together with the rest of the livestock on the farm. These different management ways require different daily routines and the farmers spend time on different tasks regarding the Ripat goats. They were asked to estimate how much time they spend each day in gen-­‐‑
eral on tasks regarding Ripat goats, which varied from three to six hours per day among the farmers. Several farmers found this question hard to answer and only 14 farmers answered this question. The main management challenge was to find enough feed for the goats. Farmers said that they spend most of the estimated time during the day to find feed for the goats. This could either be through “cut and carry” for the zero-­‐‑grazing sys-­‐‑
tem or by guarding the animals when grazing freely. Other challenges were to build a proper shed for the goats. It was a precondition that farmers had built a separate shed for goats before they could receive a Ripat goat. Many of these sheds, which were built in 2009, had collapsed or were for other reasons not used anymore. The health status of the goats is a challenge to many farmers, ei-­‐‑
ther because they do not know why goats die or what disease they have. The EO or stores to buy drugs for treatment are to some farmers far away, which makes it difficult to treat sick animals. A contradiction is found between farmers and EO’s who are the local extension officers and veterinarians at the same time. Farmers do not want to pay transport for EO’s for them to visit their farm. Farmers know that EO’s are em-­‐‑
ployed through the government and receive a salary from them. The EO’s say that the salary they are paid from the government covers the costs of transport, but only the work hours at the office. This conflict influences the relation be-­‐‑
tween farmers and EO’s and some farmers say they do not always call the EO when necessary due to this conflict. 7.2.2 Access This section deals with data about ownership of goats and milk and about where the milk from the goats ends up. Farmers say that milk from Ripat goats is used for household consumption. All 27 farmers with Ripat goats say that the household consumes the milk. Farmers were asked if any specific people or group of people is prioritized when distrib-­‐‑
uting milk in the household. 17 answered that milk is equally shared among household members and 9 answered that young children are prioritized. No goat milk is sold. If farmers had dairy cattle on the farm as well they could sell sur-­‐‑
pluses on the market, but consumption in the HH is first priority. Farmer were asked whether there was a difference between cow and goat milk they answered that goat milk is better for human consumption, especially for young children. Ownership of goats was investigated by asking about who owned the Ripat goats and who went to the market to sell goats. All farmers, asked the question about ownership of goats (26 farmers), said the family owned the goats, except one fe-­‐‑
male farmer who said that her husband was the owner of the goats. As it appears 60 from quote 1 several farmers found the ownership question strange because most farms and all included on the farm was family business. “Haha!… Maybe in the past, it was normally in this area that the man owned all livestock, but today it is normal that the family owns every-­‐‑
thing together” Besides ownership, farmers were asked about who had the daily responsibility for the Ripat goats. More than half (54%) of the interviewees answered that the wife had daily responsible, 23% said the responsibility was divided between wife and husband and 19% answered that the husband had daily responsibility for the Ripat goats. One farmer (4%) mentioned older children (male) as respon-­‐‑
sible. Offspring are mainly sold at the local market in Endabash that is occurs twice a month. The prices are very different as well as the age/size when selling. Prices range from 25-­‐‑30,000 to 180-­‐‑200,000 Tz shillings (120-­‐‑800 Dkk). The one re-­‐‑
sponsible for selling offspring are also different among farmers. 60% of farmers said it was the husband in the family who goes to the market for selling. The se-­‐‑
cond most frequent answer was, that both husband and wife could go to the market (30%). Two farmers (10%) answered that the wife sold Ripat goats on the market (farmer 4 and 5). Quote 1 -­‐‑ Farmer 16 (30). Quote from when she was asked about the ownership of the Ripat goats 7.2.3 Stability The section will include data, which contribute to the stability or lack of stability. In this context stability is based on how steadily milk was available during the year according to farmers and also the stability of feedstuffs for dairy goats. Farmers said that providing feed was the biggest challenge of having Ripat goats. This challenges makes goats performance depend on farmer’s ability to find enough and satisfying feeds for the goats. Stability will also be included in the capacity building chapter. Within the group interviews seasonal feed tables were made for mapping the feed ration for Ripat goats during the year. These were described in Availability section in tables 12 and 13. Goats are fed with crop residues as an addition to grass and leaves, which are their main feed components. Residues come from pigeon peas, maize and banana. The pigeon pea residues are for two of the groups (table 12) are only available at the harvest and they are fed fresh to the goats. In the third group (table 13) they feed with pigeon pea residues all year. This group dries and stores the pigeon pea residues. Residues from bananas are available all year, but are mainly fed at times when grasses are not available. When asking individual farmers what they feed to goats, some of them said they did not use banana residues because goats did not eat it. Other farmers said that banana residues were an important part of feeding Ripat goats, because they are 61 freshly available all year. Farmers who use banana residues said, it was very im-­‐‑
portant to chop banana leaves and matured stools, into small pieces before given to the goats. Maize residues were given after harvest, but farmers said that maize residues in general do not work well as goat feed because they are dried up when fed. Most farmers use supplementing feeds, such as maize brans or sunflower cakes. These feed components were bought on the market or was a by-­‐‑product from farmers own crop processing. To most farmers the supplementing feed was only used when main components such as grasses and leaves are less available, as can be seen in table 12 and 13. Farmers were asked about their choices of when to provide which feed components. Most farmers said that due to the costs of sup-­‐‑
plementing feed it is only given when vitally important for the goats. Some farm-­‐‑
ers provide supplementing feed strategically, such as during lactation, for keep-­‐‑
ing the goats healthy and obtaining a certain milk yield. Farmers and groups were asked if they arranged mating and lactation periods according to the feed availability during the year. No farmers had any strategy like this, and it did not seem like any farmers were planning reproduction cycles according to seasons. The reproduction cycle was very different from farm to farm. Some farmers were doing lactations period of two to three months and others six months. The reasons for the specific lactation periods were just as dif-­‐‑
ferent among farms as the length itself. Some farmers said they were doing what they were told by the Ripat project, some said the doe had no more milk after two or three months, some said they like to give the goat a long dry period and some farmers did not have specific reasons. 7.3 Capacity building This result section will provide data about how the project has linked capacities to the farmers regarding goat rearing together with other linkages goat farmers are involved in. The used of the different linkages by goat farmers at the time of data collection is also provided. The data from Ripat 3 in Katatu district is collected three years after the project ended. After the project ended (2012), the farmers were “free” of project obliga-­‐‑
tions and they could have stopped all project activities if they wanted. This was not the case and many relations and activities originated from the project were observed. These actions will be based on farmers’ initiatives because no external facilitators gathered the groups or provided knowledge to farmers. The project operated from a Linear Logic Model (see figure 1 page 33). The project had large influence on farmers during the project through all these actions. Others than the project group and facilitator influence farmers especially post-­‐‑project where the facilitator does not take part in the group anymore, and further support of farm-­‐‑
ers is provided by the SF and EO. Based on the interviews and observations con-­‐‑
ducted, the main actors, who was considered to influence the goat farmer re-­‐‑
garding capacity building is illustrated in figure 3. 62 HH -­‐‑ 1. priority (support, knowledge)
Village/community (social frame, network and opportinies e.g.markets)
Group incl. SF. (support, knowledge, social network)
Goat farmer
EO -­‐‑ External (knowledge)
Group facilitator (knowledge, technologies and social structure)
Figure 3 -­‐‑ Web of possible influence linkages to a goat farmer based on capacity building. Modified from (Patton, 2008). Grey arrows illustrate the overall influencing linkages. Green arrows are influ-­‐‑
ences happening during implementation of project. Text in () are the capacities expected to influ-­‐‑
ence the goat farmer. The goat farmer were during the project linked to both the group and facilitator, whereas after the project the facilitator is no more a part of this web of linkages. Besides links formed by the project goat farmers are linked to ones own HH, the village or community and to external professionals, in this case the local EO. The different linkages have been explored and how they provide capacities to the goat farmer. 7.3.1 Group facilitator This linkage has been explored by knowing about the different actions as a result of the facilitators work. The facilitator provides knowledge, introduce technolo-­‐‑
gies and create social structure within a group and the group works with these capacities. The work of the facilitator is therefore seen as a result of the actions of the group. Goats were found in the local area before the dairy goats were introduced and 78 % of the interviewed farmers had local goats before receiving the dairy goats. The knowledge of rearing the local goats is the underlying basis of farmers’ man-­‐‑
agement of the dairy goats. The project provided additional knowledge through a facilitator who operated at group level. RECODA said that their facilitators were teaching the groups about the general important principles in animal production, which were divided in five sub-­‐‑categories: improved breed, housing, feeding, treatments against diseases and parasites, and record keeping. In broad terms the linear outcome (to stay in the terminology of the project) of this total pool of knowledge will be goat’s performance, which can be found above in the result 63 section 7.2 Food Security. As already described, the ability to transfer the knowledge into action also affects the outcome, such as access to; goats, breeding stock, feed, water etc. The goats, both does and breeding bucks were accessed through a SC established by the project. The project introduced some varieties of feeds for goats like elephant grass and multiple-­‐‑purpose trees such as mango trees, where farmers could pick the fruit and feed the leaves to goats. A group leader was asked to how the distribution of goats function in the SC. He said that all the farmers in the group who wanted a goat got signed up. The re-­‐‑
quirement for receiving a goat was to build a goat house, which should be exam-­‐‑
ined and approved. The farmers who build a goat house first would get goats first. Farmers were thought about building the house but had to purchase mate-­‐‑
rials and build the house themselves. The group leader was also asked about how the group was managing the on-­‐‑going SC. Each week the livestock commit-­‐‑
tee formed in the group would register all kiddings happen the past week. They determine sex of kids and made sure female offspring got passed on in the chain. The farmers waiting in the SC was entitled to receive a goat with the same pro-­‐‑
ductive potential as the first farmers, which required control of the breeding. The livestock committee therefor also had to ensure that farmers were using the provided breeding bucks as long as the farmers still had to pass on offspring. If farmers were not practicing this breeding procedure, or in other ways did not maintain the goat properly, it would be passed on to another farmers. Two of the interviewed farmers were “second receivers” of a goat because the first farmer did not follow the rules set by the group. The livestock committee consisted of three group members elected by the group. One of them was the SF, another was the secretary of the group and the last person was an ordinary group member. After the farmer had passed on two offspring the goat including additional off-­‐‑
spring becomes property of the household. 7.3.2 Household All interviewed farmers wanted to continue to keep goats or planning to have them again (if goats had died) after the goats become their own. When farmers were asked for reasons to continue to have the goats they mentioned milk for home consumption as main reason. Selling offspring was to many farmers the second reason mainly because of a better price compared with selling local goats. Farmers were asked to score from 1 to 5 of whether they think their children have become better nourished because of the project. Scoring 1 is that to a great extend the children has become better nourished and 5 means that they have seen no improvements in children nutrition. The average score was 1.4. When farmers were asked about main contributors to the increased nutrition goats 82 % mention goats. Other reasons were bananas, pigs, general increase in income, VSLA and poultry. The individual farmers were asked about future plans regarding their dairy goats. This gave various answers but they were all planning on keeping the goats to provide milk for the HH. Majority of farmers wanted to increase the number of goats. The main purpose for this was to have more does, in order to have access to more goat milk during the year. Farmer expressed generally that the only way 64 to access more goat milk then they had at the time of interview was to increase the number of does. Farmers had a common believe that goats had a certain level of milk yield, which could not be changed, therefor they would need more goats to access more milk. The milk production only depends on the blood level of ex-­‐‑
otic breed and purebred goats will produce more milk, was another rationale made by several farmers. Farmers were fully aware of the vulnerability of pure-­‐‑
bred goats in their environment, which also is the reason that farmers prefer to increase the number of the present dairy goats instead of striving to get pure-­‐‑
bred goats. This increase in number of goats would allow farmers to sell more offspring, which also was a motivation for having more goats. The income generated from selling goat offspring is mainly used for specific purpose. Either they save up e.g. for building a house or to when they are in need of cash for paying school fees or medical bills etc. The offspring from the dairy goats are fetching a higher price on the markets than local goat offspring, according to farmers. Two farmers specifi-­‐‑
cally wanted to improve the housing for the goats. They both mentioned that the dairy goats had to have their own house, and be separated from other animals in order to perform well. One farmer was planning to establish a breeding associa-­‐‑
tion for Saanen goats in the village. The motivation for the farmer to do so was the reduced availability of the breed in the area. The farmer said that because breeding (of the introduced breed) was mainly done within each group, it was difficult to control and improve the total potential of the breed and it was diffi-­‐‑
cult to purchase additional breeding stock in the local area. When investigating this overall topic a general assumption about goats became clear. Goats have a socially lower ranking when comparing to cows in many de-­‐‑
veloping countries (Aziz, 2010) and therefor farmers would prefer to have cows comparing with goats. The answers to the very closed question of whether farm-­‐‑
ers prefer goats or cows supported the above made statement. The reason why farmers wanted cows instead of goats were the advantage of being able to pro-­‐‑
vide milk for HH and for selling surpluses. One farmer made an exception and stated that at this stage he would benefit more from having the goats than trad-­‐‑
ing them to one cow. 7.3.3 Group The groups were meeting regularly either weekly or monthly and 93 % of the farmers still belonged to their groups. Hence 7 % (two farmers) had stopped participating in their groups. One farmer said she feel she was not benefiting from being in the group anymore. In addition she said she was very busy taking care of her children and farm. Her husband did not live together with her be-­‐‑
cause he had more than one wife. The other farmer not participating in his group said that he was not interested in continuing in the group because he had already got the knowledge and technologies. Now he wanted to focus on applying and maintaining the technics and knowledge on his own farm. Both farmers have been committed to their groups and they both still had their goats, and got milk for HH consumption. Farmers who were still participating in their groups were asked what activities they do as a group. They were mainly meeting because of 65 the VSLA (Village Savings and Loan Association; a savings group) or to work on a group owned banana field. Even though two farmers were not participating in group-­‐‑activities they were still connected to their group. In order for these farmers to have goats to repro-­‐‑
duce, they need contact (a relation) to other farmers for using a buck. Both farm-­‐‑
ers answered that they use group bucks for breeding. They might have stopped the group activities, but they both still have contact to the group because of their goats. The knowledge adopted has given farmers certain standards for breeding bucks. The buck has to be of the introduced breed. Breeding dairy goats with a local buck will not result in the same standard. The relation between farmers in the SC enabled goats to be distributed among the farmers. After the commit-­‐‑
ments from the project was abolished this continued relation is characterize as a network. Farmers in the SC still waiting on a goat relied on farmers who already had a goat to reproduce their goat. The success of the SC will rely on individual farmers motivation for caring about the goats. If any mother animals die, especially early in the chain, the chain be-­‐‑
comes vulnerable. One group had stopped their SC at the time of interview be-­‐‑
cause three of the five mother animals had died. It became too difficult to dis-­‐‑
tribute enough offspring for the farmers wanting to maintain the chain. In anoth-­‐‑
er group two of the five mother animals had died, but they continued the chain. The farmers who were waiting knew that it would take longer time before they would receive a goat, but it was worth waiting. This is what the group leader de-­‐‑
scribed as why they kept on running the chain. Among the 28 interviewed farmers, one had no goats (F1). All the goats had died at the same time assumingly by a virus, but the farmer was not sure of the rea-­‐‑
son. He was still maintaining relations to his group in general, as well as to the part of the group activities concerning goats (mainly SC). The maintaining of re-­‐‑
lations to farmers with goats was because he wanted to, either enter the SC again to receive a goat or buying goats from farmers in the group. He still had the goat housing on his farm. Having dairy goats was not a top priority for this farmers, many other projects was more approaching, such as building a house for the family and taking care of other farm duties. This farmer had received additional training on livestock through Ripat and was his group’s SF regarding livestock. Regarding the capacities build and maintained in the group the development of SFs have been a way for the project to continue the support to farmers after the project ended. A description of the definition on SF is fund in chapter 4. Some of the interviewed farmers were SFs and they were asked about their work in their group regarding goats. None of them were doing specific work regarding goats after the project. The only way they would be doing work in the groups will be if they were members of the livestock committee. Regarding goats the SF have re-­‐‑
ceived additional detailed training on animal production. The farmers were asked what they were doing if they experienced problems with their goats (mainly sick animals) and only one farmer answered he used the SF of the group. This farmer also said that he called the EO when experiencing problems with the goats. 66 7.3.4 Community Farmers and their HH are strongly related to the local community in various ways. When farmers were selected for interviews the village leader would know exactly where the farm were and where other family members like brothers or father was located. The houses did not have addresses or road numbers so in or-­‐‑
der to find the way around it was necessary to have contact with the village lead-­‐‑
er or others who knew the area well. Most villages consist of sub-­‐‑villages, nor-­‐‑
mally four sub-­‐‑villages. A farmer therefor lives in a sub-­‐‑village but the farmers network, including contact to other project members, extends over several sub-­‐‑
villages. In this local area the general way to access land for farming is by inheriting from ones father. The farmers interviewed would often be living on land inherited by the husband from his father. The father will distribute land of his own to his sons when they become old enough to become farmers and get married. When the fa-­‐‑
ther gets to old to maintain his own farm the youngest son will take over his farm to take care of the parents. The father can also choose to stay with an older son if he prefers. As mentioned earlier one farmer said that his future plans regarding dairy goats was to establish a breeding association. The thoughts on establishing a breeding association were also found elsewhere in Ripat 3. This association was already established, called KATOBRA (Karatu-­‐‑TOBRA) and the founder was interviewed. This farmer was one of the SF within Ripat 3, specialized in spreading the Ripat approach and establishing new groups. This association wanted to introduce a different dairy breed to the area called Toggenburg. The motivation for estab-­‐‑
lishing KATOBRA was the limited access to this breed in the Karatu area. A well-­‐‑
established breeding association (TOBRA) is located in the neighbour district Babati, which supply Toggenburg goats across the country and it is from this as-­‐‑
sociation the founder had got the inspiration. He had heard that in Babati they were doing much better with their dairy goats than he thought they were doing in Karatu. He said that this was because the Toggenburg breed was more robust and adaptable to the climate and that this breed should replace the present breed. It was difficult and expensive to purchase the Toggenburg from Babati, because of the transport. It would be better to organize this them self, he said. The association has been put on hold due to lack of external funding, which they rely on according to the founder. Some interviews and observations were also conducted in a neighbour district Babati. Members of the goat breeding association (TOBRA) were interviewed. This association started as a part of the FARM Africa project, Babati Rural Devel-­‐‑
opment Project Tanzania, in 1991. Farmers are divided in several groups within the association and each group receive training and knowledge on goat rearing through the association. Groups work together for selling and distributing goats within and outside TOBRA and each group also have VSLA activities. The groups are benefiting from each other’s knowledge and abilities to breed goats. TOBRA also provides knowledge on establishing goat associations and on recommended goat management to any one who would ask this this in return of a fee. 67 A general interest in enhancing the living standard of the total community was observed among farmers. They all wanted the project to spread to villages and areas where it had not yet been. Some farmers pointed out that this project was better than other because the facilitators were actually staying there all through the project time of four years. The farmers said that they were sceptical in the beginning of the project, because they have been part of other projects before where they left shortly after they provided the desired technologies or support. Farmers wished for other farmers to experience same benefits as they have. 7.3.5 Extension Officer EO is a combined extensionists and veterinarian dealing with management-­‐‑ and production-­‐‑minded advice, as well as to diagnose and treat sick animals. Accord-­‐‑
ing to interviews with two local EOs there is one EO in each of the four wards in the area. Typically there are two or three villages in one ward. A village often consist of around 500 HH (Vesterager, 2015), which means that a single EO is available to up to 1500 farmers. Hence the availability of EOs most be able to serve perhaps 1500 farmers. The two EOs in Endabash are specialized, one in livestock production and one in crop production. Because Endabash also is the local division the EOs are connected to all farmers in the division. In each ward the one EO has to deal with both livestock and crop production. The EO is em-­‐‑
ployed by the government and is placed centrally in each ward. They normally work from their office and only visit farmers on request. During the project the EOs were involved in the projects and received further training through the pro-­‐‑
ject. The interviewed EO said that he had been invited to some of the group meeting to participate in a teaching session for contributing with knowledge on the subject. The EO said that after the project ended he had not met with any groups because he was supposed to be invited, but this had not happened. When the individual farmers are in need of the EO it is mainly for treatment of sick animals. Among the interviewed farmers 64 % of farmers call the local EO, either for advice or for him to come and look at the sick animal. The rest of the farmers, 36 % treats animals themselves. This also means that 36 % of the farm-­‐‑
ers will not have any direct contact with the EO. Farmers expressed a common discontent of the relation to the local EOs. When a farmer is in need of the EO to visit the farm, the farmer has to pay for transport. This arrangement does not please farmers, especially not farmers living in remote areas with greater dis-­‐‑
tance to where the EO is placed. Farmers say they cannot afford to pay this transport fee together with the expenses to drugs. Farmers were uncomprehend-­‐‑
ing to why they should pay for transport when the EO is employed by the gov-­‐‑
ernment and gets monthly salary. EOs did not see other choices than farmers having to pay for transport because their salary was rather low. 68 8 Discussion Dairy goats are introduced by Ripat and by other agricultural developing pro-­‐‑
jects with the aim of improving food and nutrition. Data collected and analysed in this thesis are discussed in relation to the research questions by the following method. The present status regarding the goats in the particular time of data col-­‐‑
lection, are discussed against selected literature and the project approach. Possi-­‐‑
bilities for further optimizing the milk production and improving the household food and nutrition security are discussed. The process of reach the goal of in-­‐‑
creasing food security requires more than increased production. Goat farmers are embedded in a web of influencing linkages of which the farmer takes into ac-­‐‑
count when managing the goats. The project influences the goat farmers by providing capacities like knowledge, abilities to transfer knowledge into action and create social structures. It is discussed how the capacities of the project in-­‐‑
fluences the goat farmer compared with other links influencing. It is also dis-­‐‑
cussed what links and conditions are decisive for enhancing food security. 8.1 The influence of the goats on family food security The discussion of goats influence on farmers and their families’ food security is based on the research question; does the introduction of dairy goats affect smallholder farmer families, and if yes how do dairy goats influence food securi-­‐‑
ty at household level? The effects of goats are divided in to three categories, the three performance outcomes, milk production, reproduction and robustness. Milk production The available amount of milk for consumption was difficult to measure precisely. Farmers had between 0.5 to 2 litres of milk available daily and 1.3 litres on aver-­‐‑
age, based on farmer’s own memory. Not many farmers were measuring the milk, only collecting it, which expectedly in some cases is not corresponding the actual milk production. When measurements are based on human estimates they can tend to be either generally less than actual production or greater. In litera-­‐‑
ture some tendency of farmers estimating greater than actuality is found. In semi-­‐‑intensive systems the average milk yield per day based on farmers answer in a survey was 3 litres. The average milk yield per day, in same production sys-­‐‑
tem by actual measurement and recording was 2.2 litres. The same pattern is seen in extensive production system where results based on surveys were 1, 1.9 and 2.2 litres (Eik, et al. 2008; Jackson, 2013) whereas the results from actual measurements were 1.5, 0.8, 0.6 litres (Norris et al.). Only five farmers had more than one doe for lactation. When farmers have more than one doe, it could be possible to create a strategy of spreading out the lacta-­‐‑
tion during the year, and make the availability of milk more stable during the year was the ideal. But no farmers had goat milk available all year around. Most farmers had goat milk for 6 months of the year or less. Length of lactation in data is lower than what was found in literature. The average lactation length in data was 4 months and in literature the shortest length was 6 months (Kamal & Nikhaila, 2009) and the longest was 10 months (Eik, et al. 2008). The differences in milk production length can be explained by the farmer’s focus of keeping the goats. In this study the farmers were keeping goats primary for milk production and 69 Goats produced on average 1.3 l of milk available during one-­‐‑third of the year. On average a HH consists of 8 people and when milk is shared equally among HH members (as is found in more than half of the families), each member consumes 163 ml of goat milk per day for four month. This gives an annual consumption of 20 litres per person, which only accounts for 30 % of FAO’s recommendation on 68 liters per capita (FAO 1974-­‐‑1977). These results are expectedly even lower due to a likely over-­‐‑estimation of milk production by the farmers. Either way, the daily milk production found in data is lower than results found for the Saanen breed in the literature (Norris et al., 2011; Jackson, 2013). The does were found to be in their fourth lactation on average, which means that most of them are in their parity of production peak (Marete et al. 2014). Reproduction Reproduction generates new generations (offspring) with a certain genetic po-­‐‑
tential and it is necessary for milk production. The offspring (mainly males) can contribute with income by selling live animals or meat. Female offspring can be used for additional milk production. Farmers kept on average 4.1 dairy goats with a vide range from one to ten goats, which is in line with results from Jackson (2013) and Eik et al. (2008) with 5.7 and 4.8 goats respectively. A farmer had on average 1.3 does whereas Jackson (2013) and Eik et al. found farmers to have 2.5 and 2.6 does respectively. The farmers included in the data have the same number of goats as found elsewhere but had a lower number of does on their farm. The average age of the does at 4.6 years is an estimate, which could be higher if the actual age of the first provided goats were known. The replacement rate of the first received doe of 37% shows that more than one-­‐‑third of the farmers are dairy goats within their first couple of parities. Age at first kidding was 411 days and was similar to the 402, 408 and 414 days found by Jackson (2013), Safari et al. (2008) and Jackson et al. (2014). The results however are approximately 100 days shorter than the average AFK found in literature. The calculated kidding interval of 288 days based on the re-­‐‑
sults of AFK, number of kiddings and age of does are in line with what is found by Jackson (2013) but also expectedly more efficient (lower) than the average KI found in literature of 321 days. Regarding the average litter size it was the same as the average found in literature at 1.4 and also the same as found by Safari et al. (2008). As described earlier with respect to milk production, data based on farmer’s memory seem to give better results, which in the case of AFK are likely, too. Farmers have been trained in recommended management of the goats in the project. Because the interview is about the project, the farmers could think they had to live up to the recommendations. Another reason for better results by memory can be because of the time of interview. The interviews were conducted during the long rainy season with plenty of feed for the goats, and farmers per-­‐‑
haps tend to forget how things were in the dry season. All farmers were guaran-­‐‑
teed full anonymity but simply did not want to look bad when compared with other farmers. The number to total offspring per doe and the times giving birth 70 are not expected to be over-­‐‑estimated by farmers because these numbers are very visual and farmers have been handling the offspring. Robustness For goats to survive and thrive in a different environment than where they origi-­‐‑
nated from, the robustness of the goats is important. Robustness of the manage-­‐‑
ment of the goats and the system they are part of are also important for creating an overall robustness of the system. The mortality rate presented in the results only account for death of offspring because farmers had little knowledge of the age of the does. If does die when they are old it is not necessarily a result of poor robustness, but simply because of their age. No distinction was made between mortality rate related to offspring age, although this can indicate whether mortality is due to bad management or robustness. Farmers already had trouble remembering how many offspring were born, how many had died, at what age does were pregnant and so on, so it was assessed that asking for this information would give largely incorrect or impre-­‐‑
cise data. The offspring mortality rate was 21%, which is similar to what is found by Bushara et al. (2012) and Ince (2010) under similar conditions. Ince (2010) is of similar breed, Saanen, and production conditions. Other studies conducted in Tanzania of other breeds but the same production conditions, expressed lower mortality rates of 7 and 11 percent for Eik et al. (2008) and Jackson (2013) re-­‐‑
spectively. Data of both studies are based on goats introduced by projects. Most farmers did not know the breed or purity of the breed of their goats. Com-­‐‑
bined with rather uncontrolled breeding this makes it difficult for farmers to know the potential of their goats. As described in the theory of robustness, dif-­‐‑
ferences in breed purity results in different production potentials. When there is a lack of information of degree of cross breed, it makes it hard for farmers to know the vulnerability of the goats. The goats introduced in Ripat 3 were of Saanen breed according to information from RECODA, whereas females were 75% pure and males 100% pure. A degradation of the purity of the breed is ex-­‐‑
pected due to the uncontrolled breeding. Many of the existing breeding bucks are gone and their replacements, in terms of actual group bucks or individual farmer’s bucks, cannot be 100% pure. Farmers only used bucks introduced through the project, which means that all replaced breeding bucks (F1), could be 87.5% purity at maximum. When farmers used F1’s coming from their own group degrees of inbreed were likely to evolve. The degradation and degree of inbreed would, at the stage of data collection, be to a minimum. If farmers continue to use bucks within their own group, these challenges can be expected to result in low-­‐‑
er performance results. Controlled breeding management on a community level is considered necessary to establish the healthy and desirable genetic potential of goats for all farmers in the project area. By controlling the breeding at a community level the desired robustness of the total available goats is more likely to happen than by uncon-­‐‑
trolled breeding. When goats are in a balance of robust and high producing stock they are more likely to obtain stability of goats’ contribution to food security. Some steps have been made in order to combat the future breeding challenges. A 71 few farmers had started a breeding association for the Karatu district named KATOBRA. This association focuses on a different dairy breed, namely Toggen-­‐‑
burg. It has not been fully established yet due to lack of finance. Spreading groups constituted by SF all receive Toggenburg goats for their SC. Some animals of this breed are available, but because this breed is not widely spread in the ar-­‐‑
ea, the association will have to buy considerably number of breeding animals from another district. The economic burden of this purchase makes it difficult for the association to get well established. Other farmers were working on establish-­‐‑
ing an association for the Saanen breed because they were satisfied with this breed and it is available to a larger extend in the local area. The work on this pro-­‐‑
ject was still at an early stage at the time of data collection. The importance of establishing breeding associations is also stressed by Ahuya et al. (2005) be-­‐‑
cause of the increased availability of desired breeding material. Other management factors are more related to robustness at an individual level. Any type of management that accommodates disease prevention and decreases the pathogen pressure improves the robustness of the system goats are kept in. Housing, ways of feeding, and introduction of animals from outside the flock are management factors which need to be considered. Most farmers did not separate dairy goats from other animals at all time. The reasons for this were diverse and possibly a combination of factors at any given time. Farmers expressed having challenges of building good goat houses, which then collapsed. Farmers also of-­‐‑
ten chose to graze goats freely together with the other farm animals because it was easier or because they experience that goats were feed better by free graz-­‐‑
ing than zero-­‐‑grazing. It is reasonable to advise for a more consistent separation of the dairy goats in order to create a more robust management when relating to pathogen pressure. This separation will include additional working hours spent on goats, which would be taken from other duties. Attention to farmers’ chal-­‐‑
lenges of adequate feeding through zero-­‐‑grazing is also needed to for expecting better results from this advice. Alternatively consistent vaccination and early treatment of infected animals could be an optional management choice instead of keeping goats separated and on the farm. This choice is connected with an extra work load and costs for purchasing drugs as well as availability of drugs which have to be at hand against the actual pathogen pressure and infections caused by the rapid introduction of outside animals. By choosing this management strategy the pressure of pathogens is not reduced but trying to be controlled. Vaccina-­‐‑
tions only cover diseases from a limited range of pathogens and with the contra-­‐‑
dicted relation between farmers and EOs, early treatment is not expected. 8.2 Focused goat production This section discusses how specific focuses in the goat management during the year affects goats’ contribution to families’ food security. Farmers do not practice all the elements of the recommended management of the Ripat project for various reasons The farmers do not keep goats in separate housing under zero-­‐‑grazing system and the breeding is rather uncontrolled. When accepting this fact as reality a management with more specific focus areas and times of focus regarding the general management can possibly increase the 72 performance of the does. The doe are the main contributor of goats to food and nutrition security because of its milk production. The discussion of making management of the goats more sufficient and optimis-­‐‑
ing the production is raised in the light of the insufficient amount of milk con-­‐‑
sumed per person calculated in this study, comparing with the recommendations from FAO at 68 liters (Muehlhoff et al. 2013). When only taking the consumption of goat milk into account the annual milk consumption per household member was 20 liters. Farmers were supplementing milk from cows in the months with no goat milk and according to FAOSTAT (2015) the average annual milk con-­‐‑
sumption per capita in Tanzania in 2011 was 42 liters. This means that goats would contribute approximately to half of the annual milk consumption per capi-­‐‑
ta. It should be noted that the farmers mainly have goat milk for four months. The additional eight months milk families will consume approximately the same amount, spread over the double time. In this light the goats are already rather effective. The potential to increase production seems immediate possible with smaller adjustments. Increasing the milk production will enhance the availability and thereby access to milk within a household -­‐‑ provided that only HH members consume the milk, as found in data. This will increase the nutritional status of the HH, which is of great importance in Karatu district. Data show that 82 % of farmers had one lac-­‐‑
tating doe whereas the average lactation length was 4 months, with an average milk production of 1.3 liters. The question is how improved management of this doe can increase milk production and in turn what are the possible negative con-­‐‑
sequences? In the literature review it was found that milk production primarily depends on genetic potential and adequate feeding. Within the data the genetic potential of goats was difficult to determine because farmers know very little about the genotypes of their goats. Hence feeding is the most manageable factor for the farmers. Feeding Regarding milk production, adequate feeding increases possibilities of exploiting the full genetic potential of milk production (Goetsch et al. 2011). Variations in milk yield regarding weather seasons was found in Zahraddeen et al. (2007) due to farmers reliability of natural feeds (grasses, scrubs and leaves) as goat feed. Nutrition will be greatest during rain season, which means that goats lactating during rain season are likely to produce more milk than if lactating in dry season. Data was conducted in the rain season (April – May) and the number of farmers dairy their does at that time was 44 %. The annual availability of feeds will increase if some feeds were stored for later use. From the seasonal scheme (table 12 and 13) it can be seen that group 4 were storing residues from pigeon peas and was able to feed goats with pigeon pea residues in all months of the year. Pigeon pea is a grain legume, and the crop residues contain reasonable quantity of nitrogen. The feeding of dried pigeon pea residues add valuable nutrition to goat’s diets in times of shortage of freshly available nutritious feeds (dry season). This will make farmers less reliable on freshly available fodder and supplementing feed. When farmers are able to pro-­‐‑
73 vide more nutritious feed in the dry season, the farmers can expect an increased milk production if goats are lactating during this time period. This strategy arises the question of when is the optimal time period for milk production if the aim is to optimize household food and nutrition security? Goats can be contributors to food and nutrition security due to farmers’ ability to purchase milk throughout the year -­‐‑ regardless of harvest or planting season. The critical time of year for add-­‐‑
ing nutritious food, such as milk, will be when the main food reserves runs low or even runs out, also called hunger season. In Vesterager et al. (2013) a seasonal calendar is provided which applies to the Karatu area (figure 4). The seasonal calendar shows that the food reserves are starting to decrease in January and are at risk of running out in May and June. This period will be categorized as hunger season. The long rain season is in March to May where the main food crops are established. In the short rain season in November and December farmers are able to plant short duration crops and hence harvest when food reserves from the long rain season runs low. In case of absence of the short rain season (due to climate changes) the total food reserve are lower and farmers and their families becomes more vulnerable to experience hunger. Goats produce most milk when the most nutritious feed is available. The season-­‐‑
al schemes in the data showed that only the group in high land (table 13) were drying and storing residues. This technology could expectedly be spread out to more farmers as an additional knowledge capacity in order for goats to better contribute to food and nutritious security. When concentrating on the present situation, most farmers relies on the availability of fresh feeds, which naturally will be in the rain season hence, goats will produce most milk if lactating during the rain season. The combination of benefiting the most of lactations in the rain season, which is also the hunger season makes rain season the optimal period for milk production under the present circumstances. More precisely, the optimal period would be if lactation starts in February and carrying on until maize har-­‐‑
vest in August. This gives a lactation length of 7 months, where as the observed lactation length on average was 4 months. The pro-­‐‑longed lactations have been observed in other studies (Eik et al., 2008; Safari et al. 2008;Ahuya et al. 2009). Figure 4 -­‐‑ Annual scheme of farmers main activities and availability of main foods in the study area (Vesterager et al. 2013) 74 The success of this strategy relies on a number of factors: time consumption for taking care of lactating goats vs. other duties, adequate feeds available during the full lactation and before the lactation, and the ability for goat to conceive at the right time. All influencing factors will sum up to a certain milk yield, but the suc-­‐‑
cess really relies on whether this production is enough to provide food security to all members of the HH. Farmers are busy planting crops around March to May according to figure 4. This means that farmers are very busy in the fields because planting has to be done within a certain time frame at the same time of having a lactating goat. It would be advisable to keep the lactating goat in a zero-­‐‑grazing system during lactation. This is in order to control the feeding, to control suckling from offspring and ease access to the doe when having to milk it twice a day. Presumable other animals on the farm are grassed freely someone has to herd them as the same time as someone (perhaps the same person) has to find feed for the lactating goat and at the same time being busy planting and weeding crops. When the optimal lacta-­‐‑
tion period is extended to seven months the goats will have to be kept in zero-­‐‑
grazing system from February till September. If farmers want goats to be lactating in February they need to manage concep-­‐‑
tion of the doe in September the year before, because goats have a gestation pe-­‐‑
riod around five months. According to farmers (table 12 and 13) September is the beginning of the shortage-­‐‑of-­‐‑feed period for goats. Adequate nutrition is cru-­‐‑
cial to ensure high ovarian activity hence increase chances for conception. Sep-­‐‑
tember is also the time for harvest, which means that crop residues are readily available during this time. The timing for both conception and lactation in this strategy is then connected with availability of feed. In addition to crop residues farmers feed tree leaves and supplementing feed, such as maize brans and sun-­‐‑
flower cake to the goats during this time. After the lactation period ends it is time for conception in order to repeat the lactation period the year after. This means that farmers should keep goats in a zero-­‐‑grazing system from birth in February to mid September for it to stay in this system until after conception. This ensure easy access to the doe when it goes in heat and ability to provide adequate feed around period for coming in heat (provided that quality crop residues from e.g. pigeon pea is conserved). After the conception follows five months dry period where the doe can be grazing freely to reduce the workload around the dairy goats. After that the cycle starts all over again. The strategy of concrete management focus is a way for the individual farmer to make the production of his goats more sufficient and expectedly increase and maintain a higher milk production. By decreasing the factors preventing goats in reaching their milk production potential it increases the HH milk consumption. This efficiency strategy is highly relevant in East African countries where access to land e.g. for grazing goats freely, is decreasing rapidly. This is explicit de-­‐‑
scribed by Peacock (2008:225) “a decline in farm size with each generation in-­‐‑
heriting land further decreases available household options.” This inheriting sys-­‐‑
tem was also observed in the studies area. 75 This goat management strategy makes it possible for the farmer to further opti-­‐‑
mize milk production and harmonize production with the household need for milk. By decreasing the factors preventing goats in reaching their milk produc-­‐‑
tion potential it increases the HH milk consumption. The strategy requires a KI of one year. This is also suggested by Eik et al. (2008) which stats: “…as it is consid-­‐‑
ered optimal in order to maximize milk yield in semi-­‐‑intensive and extensive production systems”. This study also acknowledges a shorter KI in Tanzania due to high demands and profitable prices. Assuming farmers would like to practice this specific focus management strategy due to the potential higher milk production. The interest of the individual farm-­‐‑
ers will then contradict the interests of the members in the SC as well. Because goats are distributed through the SC some farmers receive a goat before others. It is in the interest of the group that all farmers receive goats as early as possible. The extended KI will slow down the SC and the timeframe of when the chain is finished will extend. Based on the calculations as earlier on a timeframe of the SC, a new timeframe can be calculated. When KI is the only changed value, going from 288 days to 365 days, the timeframe of the SC will extend by one year. The importance of increased focus and thereby effectiveness of any productions on the farms will naturally enhance as the families access to land will decrease (Peacock, 2008). At the moment families have access to on average five acres, which is far above the one acre that was required to enter the project. When farmers have access to much land they the create stability of the overall produc-­‐‑
tion by engaging in many productions giving low to middle output, which makes the production less vulnerable to failure of one crop. If – when – the farms in fu-­‐‑
ture generations will be smaller due to the inheriting systems to land (Peacock, 2008) and the pressure from a growing population (Fischer et al. 2002), farmers are forced to change to more intensive productions requiring fewer productions with higher output. 8.3 Capacity building This discussion section will be based on the research question: Which capacities are built by the introduction of dairy goats, and how might that support food se-­‐‑
curity of the farmer families? Additionally these affects are discussed regarding to the goal of increasing food security. CB has been defined as a process creating opportunities to take action. In a more detailed understanding based on the definition by UNDP (2009) CB is the pro-­‐‑
cess through which individuals, organizations and societies obtain, strengthen, and maintain their abilities to set and achieve their own development objectives over time. The way the term is used shares some similarities to the notion of empowerment, at least in the sense that the term concerns the process by which people gain confidence, and gradually feel more able to set their own priorities and path of action forward. Multiple linkages influence the processes and when focusing on goat farmers in the context framing this thesis the linkages become more specific. Five main linkages have earlier been identified as possible influ-­‐‑
encing linkages to a goat farmer in this context. The influences of these links are expressed by capacities. 76 In order to understand how capacities has affected the farmers it is necessary to discuss the capacities being build during the project and which of the capacities have been maintained by the farmers. The result of that discussion reveals the present linking and influences of the project, concerning introduction of dairy goats, included in the data. Additionally linkages influencing the farmer outside of the project are compared to the influences of the project in order to compre-­‐‑
hend the observed linkages and their effect on the goat farmer. Goat farmers in the data possess capacities based on geographically local linkag-­‐‑
es like HH and local community/village and external professional extensionists. When a project targets the goat farmers this give rise to additional capacity building dependent on the projects goals and processes. The Ripat project pro-­‐‑
vides additional capacities to goat farmers. The strategy of combining the distri-­‐‑
bution of technologies with the facilitation of capacity building provides farmers with abilities to make optional choices. They can choose to follow the recom-­‐‑
mendations and management learned or they can choose not to, and pursue oth-­‐‑
er options. It will be based on farmers’ own evaluation of benefits and challenges and the meaning they attach to their own farming system. The project provides additionally knowledge, abilities to transfer knowledge into action and social re-­‐‑
lations to farmers through two main channels, namely the farmers group and the facilitator. After the project the facilitator’s role of providing capacities is chan-­‐‑
nelled out to the farmers group and the local EO. Facilitator When the project was on-­‐‑going the group facilitator was a key figure for generat-­‐‑
ing capacities to the group. After the project the project facilitator no longer per-­‐‑
forms this function. According to the standards of continuing the Ripat approach the further support of farmers is generated through the group, the SF and the lo-­‐‑
cal EO. Because data is collected three years post-­‐‑project the direct influence by the facilitator affecting the goats farmer is very complex to find. Household Farmers’ reason to keep dairy goats was due to the milk production. Providing milk to the household is first priority for continuing to keep dairy goats. Generat-­‐‑
ing income from the goats was secondary. Farmers wanted to increase the num-­‐‑
ber of goats, especially does, for increasing the annual milk consumption. In-­‐‑
creasing the number of goats were farmers only solution for increasing annually milk production from goats. No emphasis was given to increasing management of the goats. The literature points out that adequate feed is a main factor improv-­‐‑
ing goat performance, such as higher ovarian activity (Mmbengwa et al. 2009), increased litter size (Amoah et al., 1996: Lopez et al., 2001), low mortality (Hailu et al. 2006), milk production and length (Norris et al. 2011). As farmers also are fully aware of, the purebred goats are not beneficial in their environment and production system. According to Peacock (2008) the most ben-­‐‑
eficial exotic blood level is 75 %. At this level the goats retains an availability to adapt to the environment, hence robustness, and at the same time offer a better milk production and fast growth rates. This is contradictory to findings of Das 77 and Sendalo (1991), which is based on various of breeds and crosses, that found that from 75 % and higher of exotic blood level the goats were less economical compared with keeping highly selected SEA goats under good management prac-­‐‑
tices. In addition to this, Eik et al. (2008) found that increasing the exotic blood level does not equal the expected higher production. The findings of Peacock (2008) are based on the dairy breed Toggenburg where as the study of Eik et al. (2008) is based on the dairy breed Norwegian. According to Peacock (2008) “Toggenburg breed which it [FARM-­‐‑Africa] has tested in three countries and found to be ideal for most situations in East Africa.” Additionally the study cate-­‐‑
gorize Saanen as the least well adapted breed of various breeds found in East Af-­‐‑
rica. It requires high intake of good quality feed and because of the white color it can suffer from skin sensitivity if exposed to the sun for long periods. The farm-­‐‑
ers in the data collection area were provided with Saanen breed and the calcu-­‐‑
lated exotic blood level of F1 offspring was 87.5 %, but due to the rather uncon-­‐‑
trolled breeding these levels are expected to decrease over time. Hence, litera-­‐‑
ture implies that the goat farmers in this study may have been provided with a sub-­‐‑optimal combination of breed and exotic blood level choices. The farmers were generally emphasising a desire to change from dairy goats to dairy cows if this ever became possible. The cultural perception of dairy goats being the poor mans cow (Aziz, 2010) resulting in higher prestige attributed with cows might explain the preference for cows among the farmers, even though the nutritional value of cow milk is smaller compared to goat milk and that the farmers were preferring goat milk over cow milk for HH consumption. The negative association to goats can also be an underlying factor that might af-­‐‑
fect farmer’s perception of herding goats in a negative way, hence lower perfor-­‐‑
mance. The fact that many farmers are still keeping dairy goats and the SC continues in-­‐‑
dicates that goats are important to the farmers. This importance can be related to farmers’ economic standards. Goats are supporting the poorest because of their lower purchasing costs and lower nutritional requirements than for cows (Escareno et al. 2013). This entitles the continuous focus on developing milk production from goats compared with from cows because they are more likely to target the poorest who widely are a target group for developing work. Group At the time of data collection (three years after project closure) all groups were still active and 93 % of the farmers were still members of the group. Farmers were mainly participating in the group because of other activities than because of the goats. The relation to other goat farmers within the group was observed to be very consistent. A reason for seeing so sustainable groups can be the mutual understanding of each other’s situation. By working together when learning and trying out something new it generates a feeling of group strength and courage. This allows farmers to build up trust and respect, which makes it easier for new ideas to be introduced (de Haan, 2001). All goat farmers were maintaining relations to group members because of the need of breeding. Also farmers who did not participate in the group were still in 78 contact with farmers in the group who were keeping goats because they were exchanging breeding stock. A continued relation to a project group after the pro-­‐‑
ject ends, hence a social network, is found by de Haan et al. (1996) to be a way to access resources due to the lack of efficiently functioning markets. Different relations with various degrees of obligations and/or motivation can be addressed between goat farmers in the groups. I) Farmers who had received a goat, but not yet passed on offspring, had a high degree of obligation to continue being in the SC because of fellow farmers expectations and the contract they have signed. II) The farmers still waiting for a goat had a high personal obligation (motivation) to continue in the group because they decided they want a goat and perhaps have already build the goat house. III) Farmers who had passed on off-­‐‑
spring have low degree of obligations but still wanted to participate in the net-­‐‑
work with the other goat farmers, because of the access to dairy breeding stock. A last category of farmers who have had goats, which have dies of various rea-­‐‑
sons, they continue their relation to the other goat farmers because of their in-­‐‑
terest in accessing dairy goats again. The SF is part of the group and after the project ended the SF takes over parts of the facilitators role. A strong relation to SF among goat farmers is expected for maintaining access to support and additional knowledge. No farmers were rely-­‐‑
ing on their group SF when goats were sick, which was the observed most com-­‐‑
mon reason for seeking additional support. This relation, however, have not been a main focus area in the data collection and additional questions about this relation were few and only asked to few farmers. The full picture of this relation will require a more focused questionnaire on the topic. The SF concept is not im-­‐‑
plemented in ordinary FFS approach (Abdullah et al. 2014), which makes it diffi-­‐‑
cult to evaluate whether the observed low linkage to this type of relation is ex-­‐‑
pected based on other studies. Community The village to where the farmers are placed have great influence to farmers’ ac-­‐‑
cess to resources like social networks. The physical distances and ability to move around are major constrains to who is included in the farmers’ network. Regard-­‐‑
ing breeding the physical distance even within a village can be a challenge. If farmers have to go to an area where they rarely visit they have to rely on contact to village leaders or others willing to help find the place. This can make any initi-­‐‑
atives involving people from outside the farmers’ own physical reachable net-­‐‑
work difficult. At least it becomes more complex because of a required relation to external parts (other village leaders). The farmers had identified their future challenge of maintaining an exotic blood level and avoid inbreed as requiring a better exchange of animals within the broader community than only in the group. As a result farmers were working on establishing breeding associations, which from their point of view has not been established because of lack of fund-­‐‑
ing. Other reasons can underlie the missing establishment, which farmers lack capacities to overcome. The physical distance can become the reason for exclud-­‐‑
ing capacity linkages such as breeding stock in other villages or groups because. Most social networks are found between people or groups rapidly interacting and who know each other (de Haan, 2001). When farmers have difficulties mov-­‐‑
79 ing around outside ones own village because of above described reasons a broader network, such as an breeding association will require additional supply of capacities like ability to move around and facilitators bridging the challenge of people not knowing each other. Peacock (2008) emphasises that a breeding as-­‐‑
sociation will need a representatives from each farmer group involved and will need to prepare a constitution and elect a committee to manage its affairs. Extension Officer The EO is the external substitution for the project facilitator. It is the EOs respon-­‐‑
sibility to continue visiting and facilitating the groups as a part of their job. The local EO’s were involved in the project implementation and are therefore very conversant about how the project function. After project closure it was hoped and anticipated that the corporation between farmers and EOs would continue. Because of the economic disagreements between EO and farmers this relation-­‐‑
ship is however not functioning as expected. Another reason for farmers not showing distinctly interest in further connection to EO besides economy can be because the EO simply cannot provide what the farmers request. The EO has to manage very broad issues regarding agriculture and when these farmers have received training in new and different ways of keeping the animals perhaps the EOs do not have anything further to add to this. The linkage to external actors and institutions can be expected to be low in societies were people are highly dependent on relations on village scale rather than on more aggregated scales (Woolcock, 1998) 8.4 Capacities leading to increased food security The project provided firstly, social structure by forming groups, secondly, knowledge about goat production, thirdly, abilities to transfer knowledge into action by providing goats through the SC, which facilitate additional social struc-­‐‑
ture. The farmers are provided with knowledge and by further commitment to the project this is changing the attitude and behaviour of the farmers, which leads to increased food security over time. This is the theory logic of the Ripat approach. When this logic is compared to the, at that time, present situation for the goat farmers who were interview is seems that farmers tend to mainly rely on relations and linkages formed long before the project was introduced e.g. the HH and village. Farmers have developed strong relations to their farmer group based on other activities than goats, but access to breeding stock is a key element for maintaining the relation to other goat farmers in the group. As long as breed-­‐‑
ing stock is easy to access through the group the farmers will maintain this ele-­‐‑
ment, but if a accessible market was established farmers might as well change the group linkage to a market linkage. This process is primary based on farmers concern of future quality of breeding stock. The access to goats goes beyond the relation to other goat farmers. By assuming this statement goats has great influ-­‐‑
ence on farmers’ results of food security because the goats are very important for consuming nutritious food. The individual goat farmers are embedded in different types of social networks, each of which can be expected to influence their future actions. During the pro-­‐‑
ject period, the project established strong links with the farmers. After the pro-­‐‑
ject, these links were severed and mainly concerned few on-­‐‑going activities other 80 than goats. The links with EO was supposed to play a similar role in the future as during the project. For a number of reasons, which were discussed above, it can be argued that the links between farmers and EO are relatively weak. In contrast, the other relations identified can be described as ‘strong’ links. This includes links to HH, the village community and the group. By maintaining strong links to the group the future reproduction of goats is secured together with to some de-­‐‑
gree the increased milk production potential. Because of the rather uncontrolled breeding the potential is expected to decrease if it continues the same way. Management of the goats is a main reason besides breeding determining wheth-­‐‑
er goats are allowed to fulfil their potential. Farmers are not fully adapting the practises thought about in the project. Various reasons can be given to this lack-­‐‑
ing process. Farmers as all other individuals are building up an everyday life on the basis of routines. Farmers had knowledge about rearing goats before the pro-­‐‑
ject, however the reasons for keeping the goats were different. Farmers are still keeping the local goats and practising the local knowledge on how to rear them. An argument for selective adaption of new management methods is due to a cost and benefit analyse performed by the individual farmer. The farmer will only take in new and routine-­‐‑changing managements if they are shown to have a greater impact compared with the extra effort required by the farmer. In addition to the goats, farmers have many other livestock and crops they pro-­‐‑
duce on the farm. The diversity enhances the stability, especially when combin-­‐‑
ing annually and short term stocks. On the other side this great diversity also challenge the farmers skills for gaining profit out of all of them. The same applies for the project it involves several technologies, which together targets to in-­‐‑
crease food security. The overwhelming quantity of skills required by the farmer and the many activities can simply be a barrier for the farmer to obtain the ca-­‐‑
pacities required for adapting new methods. Another reason for low adaption to the introduced managements can be related to lack of practical trials or abilities to transfer knowledge into action. Regarding the goats some farmers are still waiting on receiving an offspring, which means that they have not had the ability to practise the provided knowledge. It becomes difficult for the farmers to recall the knowledge after many years. This reason is not fully applicable to explain low adaption among the interviewed farmers, be-­‐‑
cause all of them had access to goats on their own farm. Though, this reason would be highly relevant if a study were conducted targeting farmers who least received goats. A comparison with this study would show if this rationale is ap-­‐‑
plicable. A comment has to be made about the selected literature for generating views on how the goats are performing. Literature is selected primarily based on geo-­‐‑
graphic (tropic climate) and production system (semi-­‐‑intensive or extensive). Some literature are based on projects by NGOs involving goats as a primary actor for achieving desired goals, some are government arrangements. Some are on-­‐‑
station and some are on-­‐‑farm. Common to all of them is that the main focus is on goats, where as goats only is one technology within a “basket of options” that col-­‐‑
lectively aims to achieve a desired goat. Therefor a direct parallel between re-­‐‑
81 sults found in literature and in the present study is not adequate comparison. No scientifically sound literature was in the writer’s abilities found for a more ade-­‐‑
quate comparable, expectedly because this agricultural approach is rather differ-­‐‑
ent to other approaches especially studies including goats. A last comment is regarding the methods of data collection. The methods are in-­‐‑
corporating both qualitative and quantitative observations in terms of inter-­‐‑
views. The data is the quantitatively based enough to provide a general expres-­‐‑
sion of goat farmers influenced by the Ripat project and it is not qualitative enough to capture the in-­‐‑debt motivations and underlying actions behind the ac-­‐‑
tions of the farmers. The data provides a here and how picture of how these goat farmers are experiencing the influence of adapting dairy goats in their farm pro-­‐‑
duction. 9 Conclusion The overall objective of this study was to identify any linkage of, including the mechanisms behind, introducing dairy goats leading to food security in farmer families. Successful ADP has to be community-­‐‑based and the capacities provided shall be relevant to the farmers. The GoT is not providing sufficient support for farmers and thereby the local communities have to develop their own support. The case study of a Ripat project is such a community-­‐‑based project, which have been found to improve food security on an overall basis. The project is dealing with many technologies in a basket of options, in order to make it relevant to farmers. Stunting is prevalent in Tanzania as well as in for the case study district, Karatu. This calls for enhanced utilization quality. Milk from dairy goats is an ex-­‐‑
cellent source to improve to utilization of humans diet. Dairy goats were one of the technologies introduced by the Ripat project. The utilization dimension of food security is the driving force for introducing dairy goats, the other three di-­‐‑
mensions, and availability, access and stability are influencing the utilization outcome because all dimensions are interlinked. Dairy goats were enhancing food security when taking each dimension into ac-­‐‑
count. The availability and access to goat milk was in favour of the farmer fami-­‐‑
lies, where as the stability of the production was more inconclusive. The overall production on the farms is diverse and farmers are engaged in many different crop and livestock productions at the same time. The families have ac-­‐‑
cess to more land than was required from the project. The families (household) were on average consisting of eight people and this family would mainly only have one doe to produce milk. The doe would produce milk for four months dur-­‐‑
ing a year, which means that the availability of milk for the family is reduced to one-­‐‑third of a year. The daily production of milk per doe was wide-­‐‑ranging and the estimated average milk yield on 1.3 litres is likely to be an estimate within the upper end of the scale. Farmers have full access to milk produced by their goat(s) because all milk is consumed within the HH. The distribution of milk be-­‐‑
tween HH members seems very even, and if any members are favoured it will be young children. The dairy goats are important to farmers, together with cattle they rank high on farmers list of important livestock and the dairy goats are 82 mainly sustained on farms to produce milk for home-­‐‑consumption. The stability of the goat production is inconclusive because milk is available in a limited peri-­‐‑
od of time during the year, and there seem to be no structure in farmers’ man-­‐‑
agement emphasizing goats to produce milk when milk is most needed in terms of utilization quality – in hunger season. At the same time farmers are valuing dairy goats high on the farm and farmers wanted to continuing to keep dairy goats and they wanted to expand their production to get more milk available and to sell additional offspring. The capacities being build in the process of adapting dairy goats on the farms was knowledge, transferring knowledge into action and social learning. In general a wider adaptation of all management technologies provided by Ripat was limited among farmers. They expressed difficulties in purchasing enough feed for their goats as a main reason to why goats were not kept within the rec-­‐‑
ommended management. Farmers living in highlands were succeeding in en-­‐‑
hancing the feed availability for goats by storing crop residues from pigeon peas, compared with farmers living in lowland. The farmers seem to favour their knowledge gained by social networks or linkages existing before the project came along, such as free-­‐‑grazing and uncontrolled reproduction management. However, due to dairy goats’ importance among farmers livestock, the farmers have adopted the introduced knowledge they found relevant for them, such as maintaining certain breeding standards by choosing breeding stock within the project, This relation to the other farmers are found as the strongest link be-­‐‑
tween goat farmers. Regarding abilities to transfer knowledge into action the SC is paramount. This is farmers’ way of accessing the goats of which they obtain knowledge about. No of the SC were yet finished and the vulnerability of these SC are manifold. Each in-­‐‑
dividual goat has a crucial effect on the timeframe of when the SC is finished. The earlier in the chain any goat dies or is not producing offspring to pass on, the greater the timeframe for when the last farmers are reached is expanded. With social relation the individual goat farmers are embedded in different types of social networks, which all are liked to the goat farmer. During the project pe-­‐‑
riod, the project established strong links with the farmers. The link to other pro-­‐‑
ject farmers was largely regarding other activities than goats. The link was main-­‐‑
tained to goat farmers in order to obtain desired breeding material. The links with local EO was supposed to play a similar role in the future as during the pro-­‐‑
ject. For a number of reasons, it can be argued that the links between farmers and EO are relatively weak. In contrast, the other relations identified can be de-­‐‑
scribed as ‘strong’ links. This includes links to HH, the village community and to the overall project group. By maintaining strong links to the group the future re-­‐‑
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ried 2:_____ Adults >18; 4:_____ Elder >49; ________ Total (including respondent and spouse) g) Does your children go to school? h) Who from the household is involved in farming on this farm? i) Do you use labour on your farm from outside the household? 2.0 Farm description a) Think about all the plots that your household owns, rent in, sharecrop, use against credit or use for free. How many acres of land does your household own and cultivate? b) What types of crops are grown on your land? Please mention all c) Are any of the crops introduced through the Ripat project? 91 d) Do you practice Conservation agriculture? e) Please tell me all types of livestock kept by the household. Can you rank them by starting with the most important? f) Are you having any of the introduced animals from the Ripat projekt? g) Did you have goats before entering the RIPAT goat solidarity chain? If yes, what was the main reason? h) What was the main reason for you to participate in the goat solidarity chain? 3.0 Flock structure a) What type of goat breeds do you keep? b) How many milking goats do you currently have, including offspring? c) Do you still have the first female offspring you received from Ripat? e) How many (milking goat) offspring have you got after receiving the female goat from Ripat? f) Have any offspring died? If yes, why? g) Can you describe your strategy for your milking goats? What is the purpose of keeping these milking goats? 4.0 Feeding management a) For how long during the year do you use zero grassing (cut & carry) system? b) Is all the fodder used for your milking goats from your own land? If no, who own the land it comes from? c) Do you buy any of the feeding components or are they all home grown? If yes to buying, which ones? d) How often do your milking goats drink water? e) How do you provide water for your goats? 5.0 Health management a) Do you currently have any diseases among your milking goats? If yes, which? 92 b) Do you vaccinate against any diseases? If yes, against what diseases? c) Do you have access to veterinarian support? If yes, how do you mainly receive support? d) How do you in daily practise prevent your goats from getting diseases or in other way getting sick? 6.0 Lactation performance a) How many does are currently milking? b) For how many months do you milk your does after kidding? d) What type of birth do you experience mostly among your milking goats? 7.0 Reproduction management a) How many months does it usually take from a female offspring is born to its first kidding? b) Are you a member of a local breeding association? c) How do you arranged and organise mating? (Within the association, if mem-­‐‑
ber?) d) Do you keep records on what breeding bucks you use and on offspring? e) Do you use specific criteria when selecting buck for breeding? If yes, what criteria do you (associations) use? 8.0 Costs and income a) Do you sell animals from your milking goat herd? ¨ yes ¨ no If yes, what is the price and main criteria for a good price? c) Do you apply manure to your farm land? d) Why do you apply manure from your animals on your farm land? 9.0 Challenges and future a) What challenges do you face in keeping your milking goats at the moment? 93 b) How would you say you do with your milking goats when comparing to your fellow farmer’s in the Ripat project having milking goats? Do you do better, worse or you think it is the same? c) Is your children involved in the management of your milking goats? Do you wish for them to keep milking goats as well when they grow up? d) Do you have future goals or development you will like to achieve with your milking goats? e) What are the major constraints for you to achieve these goals? 10.0 Resilience 1) Can you tell me about all the advantages of having milking goats? 2) What do you find as disadvantages or challenges of having milking goats? 3) Why do you think farmers should keep goats in general? Degree of agreement Strongly agree Agree Neutral Disagree Strongly disagree 1 2 3 4 5 a) The advantage of having milking goats is larger than the disadvantages (1-­‐‑5) b) Since we got an improved milking goat from the Ripat project our children has become better nourished (1-­‐‑5) c) Since we got an improved milking goat from the Ripat project our household income has increased (1-­‐‑5) d) What are the most important advantages of having milking goats? e) What expectations did you have about dairy goat production after receiving information about the possibility from RECODA? f) The main consumer of the goat milk in your HH is: (Tick as many as necessary) g) The time of the year when it is most important for your family to have milk from your milking goats for household consumption: 94 h) How would you compare your HH with other similar HH in this village – but without milking goats -­‐‑ in terms of ability to provide food for your household all year round? i) How would you describe your current economic status of the household com-­‐‑
pared with before RIPAT project was introduced? -­‐‑ If your household economic status has changed to the better since be-­‐‑
fore RIPAT years – what is the reason(s)? order of priority -­‐‑ If your household economic status has changed to the worse since be-­‐‑
fore RIPAT – what are the reason(s)? order of priority Qualitative questions a) Ask either one: -­‐‑ How come you are the one in the family involved in the goat solidarity chain? -­‐‑ How come it is your spouse being involved in the goat solidarity chain? b) Who would you consider the owner of the milking goat(s) in your family? c) Who has the main responsibility of the milking goats? d) Who in the family sells milk and/or offspring? e) What is the income from the milking goats used for? f) After finishing the Ripat project, how would you describe your contact and benefits from your group, regarding assistance to your milking goats? g) How would you describe that the overall Ripat project has been beneficial to you and your family? h) Do you have suggestions or comments on how to improve the project when established in villages like yours? That’s all! Thank you very much for all of your help. Do you have any questions or com-­‐‑
ments you will like to add to your answers? 95