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What opportunities are there at farm and local community level to increase the incomes of small-scale farmers? This series of booklets aims to raise awareness and provide decision support information about opportunities for increasing the incomes of small-scale farmers
. Each booklet focuses on a farm or non farm enterprise that can be integrated into small farms to increase incomes and enhance livelihoods.
The booklets are primarily aimed at people and organisations providing advisory, business and technical support to resource-poor small-scale farmers and local communities in low- and middle-income countries. They are also intended for policymakers and programme managers in government and non-governmental organisations.
The enterprises selected are considered suitable for smallholder farmers in terms of resource requirements, additional costs, exposure to risk and complexity.
This booklet covers how to rear sheep and goats for diverse products
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Part of the 2009 'Stories of Change' initiative to document and promote Oxfam's programme results more effectively, this evaluation focuses on Oxfam's livelihood rehabilitation programme in Malawi
. The programme includes a goat distribution scheme (operational between 2005-2006 in the Thyolo district), and two irrigation schemes (constructed between 2005- 2007 in the Thyolo and Mulanje districts). Both of these interventions were designed and implemented with the intention of re-building more resilient livelihoods for local community members, following an acute food crisis in 2005. In February 2009, Oxfam carried out a mid-term evaluation of both interventions' progress to date, with the aims of learning about results, assessing sustainability, and exploring the potential for future scale-up. The evaluators found promising results which suggest that both projects are, in many respects, making good progress toward stated aims
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Part of the 2009 'Stories of Change' initiative to document and promote Oxfam's programme results more effectively, this evaluation focuses on Oxfam's livelihood rehabilitation programme in Malawi
. The programme includes a goat distribution scheme (operational between 2005-2006 in the Thyolo district), and two irrigation schemes (constructed between 2005- 2007 in the Thyolo and Mulanje districts). Both of these interventions were designed and implemented with the intention of re-building more resilient livelihoods for local community members, following an acute food crisis in 2005. In February 2009, Oxfam carried out a mid-term evaluation of both interventions' progress to date, with the aims of learning about results, assessing sustainability, and exploring the potential for future scale-up. The evaluators found promising results which suggest that both projects are, in many respects, making good progress toward stated aims.
These appendices accompany the full report.
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Part of the 2009 'Stories of Change' initiative to document and promote Oxfam's programme results more effectively, this evaluation focuses on Oxfam's livelihood rehabilitation programme in Malawi
. The programme includes a goat distribution scheme (operational between 2005-2006 in the Thyolo district), and two irrigation schemes (constructed between 2005- 2007 in the Thyolo and Mulanje districts). Both of these interventions were designed and implemented with the intention of re-building more resilient livelihoods for local community members, following an acute food crisis in 2005. In February 2009, Oxfam carried out a mid-term evaluation of both interventions' progress to date, with the aims of learning about results, assessing sustainability, and exploring the potential for future scale-up. The evaluators found promising results which suggest that both projects are, in many respects, making good progress toward stated aims
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This lambing shed design has been conceived in ChangThang, a cold desert area in the high altitude plateaux contiguous to Tibet (above 4500m)
. The local population, mostly nomadic and semi-nomadic herders live essentially from sheep and goats breeding. In spring, during animals delivery period, mortality amongst kits and lambs frequently reaches 50%. The lambing shed whose construction is described hereafter, strives to reduce this mortality by 60%, together with ameliorating the life of the herders by procuring a warm shed usable for other purposes. A basic skilled mason can build it, and most of the material required is locally available. Passive solar architecture aims at taking advantage of solar radiation during the cold season to heat the inner space. The building collects solar radiation during the day and this keeps the room warm both in the daytime and night. Heat is stored inside the walls, and released during night. Ventilation avoids overheating during daytime
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Vatta, A. F.; Abbott, M. A.; Villiers, J. F.; Gumede, S. A.; Harrison, L. J.; Zia, S.; Krecek, R. C.; Letty, B. A.; Mapeyi, N.; Pearson, R. A.
While the Goatkeepers? Animal Health Care Manual is primarily intended for use by resource-poor goatkeepers living in the south-western region of KwaZulu-Natal Province, South Africa it will also be useful in other similar agro-ecological areas of southern Africa
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The manual has been designed for on-farm use by farmers as a guide to maintain herd health, to detect early signs of ill-health and for immediate reference when the more common diseases or conditions occur in their stock, and also as a useful tool for extension workers as they interact and meet with farmers.
The diseases and conditions covered in this manual were identified as the most common and important through discussions with representatives of resource-poor goat farming communities and government extension staff working in KwaZulu-Natal Province
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The loss of livestock to wild predators is an important livelihood concern among Trans-Himalayan pastoralists
. Because of the remoteness and inaccessibility of the region, few studies have been carried out to quantify livestock depredation by wild predators. In the present study, we assessed the intensity of livestock depredation by snow leopard 'Uncia uncia', Tibetan wolf 'Canis lupus chanku', and Eurasian lynx 'Lynx l. isabellina' in three villages, namely Gya, Rumtse, and Sasoma, within the proposed Gya-Miru Wildlife Sanctuary in Ladakh, India. The three villages reported losses of 295 animals to these carnivores during a period of 2.5 years ending in early 2003, which represents an annual loss rate of 2.9% of their livestock holdings. The Tibetan wolf was the most important predator, accounting for 60% of the total livestock loss because of predation, followed by snow leopard (38%) and lynx (2%). Domestic goat was the major victim (32%), followed by sheep (30%), yak (15%), and horse (13%). Wolves killed horses significantly more and goats less than would be expected from their relative abundance. Snow leopards also killed horses significantly more than expected, whereas they killed other livestock types in proportion to their abundance. The three villages combined incurred an estimated annual monetary loss of approximately $USD 12,120 amounting to approximately $USD 190/household/y. This relatively high total annual loss occurred primarily because of depredation of the most valuable livestock types such as yak and horse. Conservation actions should initially attempt to target decrease of predation on these large and valuable livestock species
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The Changthang region in the Indian Trans-Himalayan area of Ladakh represents the western extension of the Tibetan Plateau, an important highland grazing ecosystem
. The Changpa, nomadic pastoralists who originally migrated from Tibet in the eighth century A.D., graze the rangelands of Changthang. The Changpa are Buddhists and share cultural and linguistic affinities with Tibet. They lost access to several traditional pastures on the Tibetan side when India and China fought a war in the region in 1962. Around the same time, the Indian side saw a heavy influx of Tibetan refugees (popularly known as TRs), who, like the Changpa, rear a variety of livestock including horse, yak, sheep and goat. These livestock types are adapted to the hostile and marginal pastures of the region, and provide a range of products and services. The domestic goats of Changthang reportedly produce the finest cashmere wool or Pashmina in the world. The Government of India has been facilitating Pashmina production by providing incentives to the Changpas for several decades, in the form of supplementary cattle feed during severe winters and subsidized food provisions etc. Recent studies of the people of Changthang suggest considerable social, economic and land tenure changes, particularly during the period after the war between India and China. A number of studies were conducted primarily in the Rupshu-Kharnak area that is relatively close to the district headquarters, Leh, and an important tourist destination. However, there is virtually no information from other, parts of Changthang, especially the eastern Hanle Valley bordering China (c. 3,000 km2; 32°N, 78°E), a remote area which is out of bounds for foreign nationals, and for which Indian nationals need a special permit. The Hanle Valley is an important area for wildlife conservation. It supports the last surviving population of the Tibetan gazelle Procapra picticaudata in Ladakh, a species on the brink of extinction in India. Hunting in the past, and excessive livestock grazing in its high altitude habitat, have caused a dramatic range reduction for the gazelle from c. 30,000 to less than 100 km2 within the last century. The Hanle Valley also supports a relatively high density of kiang Equus kiang, a species of wild ass that grazes alongside livestock. Although traditionally tolerated, local people today believe that they compete with livestock for forage, and are thereby compromising cashmere wool production
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Water is in the air we breathe and beneath the ground we walk on
. The very substance of life, it makes up as much as 60 percent of the human body. And yet, for one billion people there is such a thing as life without water. These are the people seen in Dry - those who live in the dry lands of Africa, Asia, the Pacific, and the Americas, eking out an existence at once remarkable and mundane between craggy mountains, near oases, or close to well-springs surrounded by cracked earth or shifting sands. From the ingenuity of the highland people of Chile's Atacama desert who use giant nets to capture water from clouds of fog, to the ancient wisdom that protects the grazing lands of Kenya's Masai, this beautifully illustrated book tells the diverse stories about people in very hot, very cold, or very high places, who spend their lives collecting, chasing, piping, and trapping the water that life requires - all the while taking great care that no form of life, plant or animal, benefits at the expense of another. In a world of finite resources, where the struggle for shrinking sources of water intensifies daily, these stories - collected over three years by photographers, writers, and scientists from four continents - are a source of hope and wonder. The book includes an extensive gazetteer with eco-tourism and travel information, organizations and charities to further awareness of the vast array of life carried on precariously yet richly on the dry lands of earth
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In late summer, in a semi-arid mountain range in Nepal, three field methods for determining the botanical composition of herbivore diets were compared
. Data were collected from the same animals belonging to one herd of domestic yak (Bos grunniens) and two herds of mixed smallstock, consisting of domestic goats (Capra hircus) and sheep (Ovis aries). Bite count, feeding site examination, and microhistological analysis of feces gave different estimates of forage categories and plant species in both animal groups. Because yaks grazed in other vegetation communities when not observed for bite-counts and feeding signs, the results from the latter methods could not be compared directly with that from fecal analysis. In smallstock, feeding site examination gave higher estimates of graminoids and lower estimates of shrubs than the other two methods, probably because all feeding signs on shrubs were not detected. Bite-counts and fecal analysis gave comparable results, except that forbs were underestimated by fecal analysis, presumably due to their more complete digestion. Owing to the difficulty in collecting samples that are representative of the entire grazing period and the problem of recording feeding signs correctly, both feeding site examination and bite-counts are unsuitable methods for studying the food habits of free ranging domestic and wild herbivores. Microhistological analysis of feces appears to be the most appropriate method, but correction factors are needed to adjust for differential digestion. The systematic use of photomicrographs improves the speed and accuracy of the fecal analysis. A fines del verano, en un pastizal semia´rido motan˜ oso de Nepal, comparamos 3 me´todos de campo para determinar la omposicio´n bota´nica de la dieta de herbi´voros. Los datos fueron colectados de los mismos animales pertenecienntes a un hato e yaks (Bos grunniens) dome´sticos y dos hatos de rumiantes menores combinados de cabras dome´sticas (Capra hircus) y ovinos Ovis aries). El conteo de bocados, la examinacio´n del sitio de alimentacio´n y el ana´ lisis microhistolo´ gico de heces dieron iferentes estimaciones de las categori´as de forraje y especies de plantas en ambos grupos de animales. Debido a que los yaks
apacentaron otras comunidades vegetales, cuando no se observaron para el conteo de bocados y signos de alimentacio´ n, los esultados de este me´todo no pudieron ser comparados directamente con los del ana´ lisis fecal. El examen del sitio de limentacion de los ruminates menores produjo estimaciones ma´ s altas de las graminoides y ma´ s bajas de los arbustos que los tros dos me´todos, probablemente porque todos los signos de alimentacio´n en los arbustos no fueron detectados. El conteo de bocados y el ana´ lisis fecal produjeron resultados comparables, excepto para las hierbas que fueron subestimadas por el ana´ lisis ecal, presumiblemente debido a su ma´ s completa digestio´ n. Debido a la dificultad en colectar las muestra que son representatives el periodo completo de apacentamiento y el problema de registrar correctamente los signos de alimentacio´ n, tanto l examen del sitio de alimentacio´n como el conteo de bocados son me´todos inadecuados para estudiar los ha´bitos alimenticios e los animales dome´sticos en libre pastoreo y la fauna silvestre. El ana´ lisis microhistolo´ gico de las heces parece se el me´todo
ma´ s apropiado, pero se necesitan factores de correcio´n para ajustar el diferencial de digestio´ n. El uso sistema´tico de otomicrogra´ fi´cas mejora la velocidad y certeza del ana´ lisis fecal.
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