DanChurchAid
Uganda
Milk goats
By Nathan Etengu, journalist, the New Vision, Uganda
The improved goats bred by the project produced at least one litre of milk per day, which the members, either consumed or sold to raise money for other domestic needs.
Karamoja Agro pastoral Development (KADP), a non-profit making organisation is implementing the project on behalf of the Danish Charity Organisation.
Under the project, local female goats are procured and cross-bred with high dairy species purchased from South Africa. The female off-springs are then cross-bred to get a better milk yielding breed that the farmers keep. The male off-springs are often sold to raise money for the group members.
The project which started in 2001 is being implemented in Matheniko, Bokora and Pian counties.
Mrs. Regina Nacuge, the chairperson of Nabokat goat group said that milk had helped her feed her grand children left behind after he son was shot dead by a stray bullet during a cordon and search operation.
She said that the project had also given the women a sense of livestock property ownership in a society where all four-legged sellable livestock is the property of the man.
“As members, we have developed a sense of ownership for the goats since no one can claim for them. It is not like the traditional cows, goats and sheep which by culture is owned by the men,” Nacuge said.
She said that each of the goats she owned produced half a litre of milk in the morning and another half in the evening.
“I milk them very early in the morning, take them for grazing and later milk them late in the evening,” Nacuge said.
She said that the offspring also grew faster, fattened over a short period of time and fetched better prices in the market.
“A six months old improved goat fetches between sh50,000 to sh100,000 while local goats of the same age cannot even fetch sh20,000,” Nacuge observed.
She said that the project subjected them to a six months training during which they learnt group dynamics, fund raising skills, book keeping, drug administration, disease diagnosis and how to access markets for their products.
Mrs. Paska Nakong and Paula Pedo, both members of the group said that they also used the milk to feed their children and grand children.
They said that milk often became rare in the villages during rain season when the herds were taken to far away grazing areas to avoid away them eating the crops grown close to the homesteads.
The beneficiaries said that persistent livestock theft posed a great threat to the project, whose goats were delicate to keep.
“We are even forced to share our rooms with the goats at a time when we suspect that livestock thieves are hovering around,” Nacuge said.
KADP project manager, Mr. Michael Kuskus said that the projects was started under a food security scheme that included cereal banking, improved goat keeping and community based animal health care management.
He said that the objective was to reduce reliance on firewood as the alternative source of income to the families and also help fight malnutrition which was rampant in families.
“It was also to enable the women to be independent and be able to plan, take their own decisions and own property,” Kuskus said.
He said that loans were extended to cereal banking groups that enabled them to purchase produce during harvest season.
“They later sell the produce during the period of scarcity. This has not only helped the communities to maintain food security. It has also helped to reduce the prices of foodstuff during the period of scarcity,” Kuskus said.
He observed that none of the members of the cereal banking groups ever collected firewood for sale during the intensity of the drought.
“They relied on their stocks and even made profits that they shared amongst themselves,” Kuskus said.
He said that his organisation was a transition from the Lutheran World Federation (LWF) which first came to Uganda in 1979 to help Church of Uganda to provide relief and rehabilitation programmes in Karamoja during the unprecedented famine..
He said that the organisation planned to acquire goats for 30 more women groups of ten members each under the European Union Humanitarian Organisation (ECHO) project and another 100 goats under the DanChurchAid second phase programme.
He said that the objective of the project was to cover a large area in the two districts so as to fight food insecurity.
“We work directly with the veterinary departments in the two districts. The staff assists the women whenever the goats fall sick,” Kuskus said.
He however said that the community based animal healthcare workers trained by KADP also provided first aid services to the pastoralists in the villages.
DanChurchaid and the Humanitarian Aid Department of the European Commission are funding a drought preparedness program in the districts of Moroto and Nakapiripirit, which is helping the Karimojongs in developing their traditional way of living as agro-pastoralists. DanChurchAid has invited two journalists from the leading Ugandan newspapers, The Daily Monitor and The New Vision, to see the work of the local partner KADP.
DanChurchAid has a Framework Partnership Agreement with ECHO enabling DanChurchAid to implement ECHO funded projects worldwide in a broad range of sectors including water and sanitation, food aid, shelter, non-food item to humanitarian mine action. Visit website: ECHO
