A Report onGoat Based Livelihood Program

Under MPOWER- Project

Implementing Agency- Ambuja Cement Foundation, Rabriyawas

Location- Block- Bali,

District- Pali, Rajasthan

Technical Support- Centre for Microfinance

Author- Bhuvnesh Sharma

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About Project & Operational Area –

The Mitigating Poverty in Western Rajasthan (MPOWER) is a poverty reduction initiative that is supported IFAD. In line with India’s and that of the Government of Rajasthan efforts in mitigating poverty in the Western Rajasthan, the MPOWER builds on experiences and lessons learnt under ongoing programmes, and introduces some innovative features. The project is designed to reduce poverty through the development of the grassroots community institutions and support to various livelihoods activities and setting up of services delivery systems initially.

Ambuja cement Foundation is working as an FNGO in MPOWER project at Bali Block of Pali District. We are working in 24 Panchayats and covering 63 villages. Here are two geographically and demographically different regions i.e. lower belt and upper belt. Upper belt comprises of hilly and mountainous geography flowing small rivers and populated with tribal people having small and undulating landholding in which they cultivate Maize and Wheat, this area is suffer with extreme poverty, low level of education, unavailability of basic amenities, While the lower belt is geographically flat with almost no forest cover. Here people living belongs OBC, SC, General and other categories and having comparatively larger landholding with larger part only rain fed. Centre for microfinance is a resource agency providing technical support in taking new initiatives in livelihood based interventions.

District PaliBlock & BPMU BaliNo. of Panchayats covered 24No. of Villages covered 63

Interventions to strengthen Goat Based Livelihood-Looking at the need of the poor tribal community at Bali Ambuja Cement Foundation is focusing on strengthening their existing sources of livelihood. Goat which is available with almost each and every tribal family in an average herd size of 4 goats, is an important source of their cash income and nutrition also. But there are also a few problems associated in this regard. These are, local bread, having low milking capacity, poor meat quality, high attack of disease, high mortality rate and lesser access to vet care services. Baseline survey done by ACF reveals that each family losses average 2 goat in a year and in this the mortality rate of new born kids and female goat is higher.

To address this issues and make goat rearing a profitable source of income of tribal community we took following Initiatives-

1. Developing Local cadres (Pashu Sakhi & CLF)2. Institutionalizing goat rearers and building their capacities3. Facilitating door step availability of vet care services.4. Goat shed Development through Project fund and NREGS5. Breed Improvement

2 | P a g eGoat Based Livelihood Program- Ambuja Cement Foundation, Rabriyawas

Process Adopted

1. Developing Local cadre- Right from the community we have identified few active and educated people to cater the need of the community. Male members who are 12 th pass or graduate have been given 2 time training for 15 days at BAIF, Udaipur & Goat Trust, Lucknow, where they have been trained for the treatment of goat, giving medicine, oral & injectable vaccines, castration of bucks etc. these trained male members are known as CLF (Community Livestock Facilitator). Female members from SHGs & their families, who can read & write have also gone through series of training at BAIF, Udaipur where they have been educated on giving basic treatment to goat, oral vaccines & medicine. These trained members known as Pashu Sakhi. Each Pashu Sakhi works at village level & cater the vet services to 25-30 families while CLF works GP level & take the follow up of Pashu Sakhis of respective GP. If there is any treatment which Pashu Sakhi cannot provide than CLF do the need full.

2. Institutionalizing goat rearers & building their capacities- Under the MPOWER Project we have promoted Self Help Groups (SHGs) in tribal villages. From these SHGs we have identified goat rearing members who are having 3-15 goats. Then these members were organized in a group of 10-15 members known as

3 | P a g eGoat Based Livelihood Program- Ambuja Cement Foundation, Rabriyawas

Identification & selection of goat rearing members from SHGs on the basis of goat herd

(3-15)

Organize them in a group and formation of GBLG (1-10)

Organize exposure visit of

GBLG members in BAIF

Identification of Pashu Sakhi and

CLFs

Training of Pashu Sakhi and CLF

Capacity building of GBLG members by using different IEC material like- flip

chart, year calendar

Provide Medicare support and

treatment by PS & CLF

Conduct monthly meetings of GBLG and regular home

visit by Pashu Sakhi and CLF

Collection of Service charge and treatment fees ( Medicine

cost + 10% Service Charges)

Conduct monthly meeting of GSPG,

deposition of collected fee in

bank a/c and consolidate demand

of medicine

Consolidation of data collected from field and

MIS maintenance

GBLG (Goat Based Livelihood Group). These GBLGs have given exposure at BAIF, Udaipur, where they have been conceptualized about the possibilities of improvement in their goat rearing practices and how it will benefit them. After that they have given phase wise training on goat rearing practices. During phase- I members were trained on basic practices of shed management, health & hygiene management while in phase-II they were trained on breed improvement, feed & fodder management and goat market value calculation. After 6 months of these trainings a refresher training was also given to GBLGs so that they can recap the learning of past training and bring them in their regular practices.

2. Facilitating Door Step availability of vet care services-Pashu Sakhi & CLF are catering the need pf community at their door step and delivering the vet care services. With the support of project they have been equipped with the medical kit which contain all the medicine and accessories required for treatment of diseases commonly occur in goat. When Pahsu Sakhi provide treatment to goat, she collect the 10% more than the actual cost of the medicine as service charges. This amount collected against her services goes in the account of Goat service providers Groups (GSPG) of which she is a member. This corpus of GSPG will be used for further purchase of medicine after the project end. Vaccination and deworming camps are also being organized seasonally to reduce the risk of attack of seasonal diseases like FMD and HQ. Through these vaccination camps we try to cover 100% members at village level, where veterinary department support us and assist at village level.

3. Goat-shed Development through Project & NREGS- A well maintained, hygienic & clean shed itself reduces the risk of disease attack which leads to mortality of goat. Initially with the support of MPOWER project fund and community contribution we have constructed 148 goat-sheds with the capacity of 10 goat to stay in. Than with the support of NREGS 207 more goat shed have been constructed. It cost Rs, 28,000/- to construct a goat-shed. These sheds provide healthy & hygienic environment which support the growth of goat. It has also been observed that use of goat-shed has also made impact on disease reduction at family level. As a whole total 355 families benefited and constructed goat-sheds

4 | P a g eGoat Based Livelihood Program- Ambuja Cement Foundation, Rabriyawas

4. Breed Improvement-A good breed carry more milking capacity with a better body weight & meet quality than the local/desi breed. For the purpose of breed improvement we have gone through the process of castration of local bucks and at the same time sirohi bucks induced in each GBLG. Members were also orient to cross their goat through these sirohi buck.

Table no. 01- Coverage of the programme

Particulars Nos.No. of Villages 9

No. of GBLG formed 45

No. of SHGs involved 70

No of members associated 532

No. of Goats 4148

No. of Pashu sakhi 17

No. of CLF 3

Achievements-

1. Mortality of goat reduced by 30% in since project inception2. Breed improvement by crossing 167 goat from Sirohi buck and castration of Local bucks3. Community from 9 villages benifited by Vaccination of 9616 goats4. 532 families feeding their goat by using hanging fodder method and getting regular

treatment of goat at door step5. 20 Local Cadre developed as vet service provider to extend the services 6. A corpus of more than Rs. 1.00 Lakh Collected from community against the vet services

delivered

5 | P a g eGoat Based Livelihood Program- Ambuja Cement Foundation, Rabriyawas