3. LIVESTOCK
From End Of Poverty
It is estimated that almost 50% of people are employed in the livestock sector in rural areas. Women constitute about 70 per cent of the labour force in livestock farming. The overall growth rate in the livestock sector is steady (around 4.5 per cent) in spite of fact that investment in this sector is not substantial. Prakasam district is currently the second largest producer of milk in the State of Andhra Pradesh. As the ownership of livestock is more evenly distributed in the coastal districts with landless labourers and marginal farmers, the progress in this sector will result in a more balanced development of the rural economy. The diseases commonly attack the animal health like rinderpest, etc., have been eradicated from the region due to the wide network of milk cooperatives and better dissemination of knowledge and practices of animal rearing.
The Community Micro project entitled, “Provision of livestock as additional income source to 30 most vulnerable families of Katarivaripalem Village” implemented by ASSIST with the support of CARE under tsunami response programme has institutionalized a positive change in the lives of the beneficiaries by enhancing the income levels. Though the project is a new initiative for the tsunami affected communities, the rearing of the milch animals provided has become a part and parcel of their lives. The technological skills were acquired by them within a short span of time and the livestock practices are not novice to them at this juncture. The milch animals were provided on loan basis involving the village organization. There is prompt and timely repayment by the beneficiaries and they have shown utmost interest to purchase the second animal also under loan component.
The rearing of the milch animals provided is done on an individual basis but there is no collective effort to work on the problems related to the livestock such as insurance, green fodder etc., Though all input services were provided during and after the project period, the beneficiaries were not able to access the services required for livestock management such as veterinary services. Hence there is a need for a long term intervention particularly in the livestock sector which needs lot of support services, by promoting institutional setup.
The Livelihood restoration undertaken in all these 20 villages under CMPs of CARE as well as assistance from other donors, have made temporary relief to restart their activity. But to sustain the process of livelihood development in these villages, there is every need to take up long term measures and interventions with integrated delivery mechanism
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Sector Assessment:
• Single economic activity: Poorer communities engaged on labour work, even though there are opportunities and potential for commencing alternative livelihood activities poor skills, inadequate financial assistance, exposure and expertise prevents their diversification efforts. • Exclusion: Most of the communities were located in remotest part of the districts further poor accessibility to their habitation challenges the possibilities of extending services to them. The poorer communities were not treated in par with the main villages. Further inter-group caste differences also causing poor attention and support from state administration. • Poor institutional arrangements: The villages did not have any institutional support mechanism except the traditional Panchayat, the traditional Panchayat only resolves related to households. Absence of community based organizations at the village level negates the opportunity for strengthening existing livelihood opportunities besides adopting new activities. • Lack of mentoring support: It is important for any community to take stock of where it is now, where it wants to be in the future and what it needs to do to get there. Ongoing community self analysis and review provides the basis for continual improvement. Provision of mentoring support for any community is critical, no matter what its current circumstances.
Gaps Identified:
• Health Services: Proper animal care facilities are not available or inaccessible to the target communities as animal health care is critical in dairy development activities. In the absence of quality health care the beneficiary or client exposed to the risks of poor milk yield, high maintenance cost and input cost. • No collectivism: Lack of community organization and solidarity results in weak negotiating poor and increases the cost for services and support facilities. Collectivism reduces the operational cost of the economic activity besides ensuring fair prices for produce. • Fodder: The critical and dominant factor determining the outcome of the activity is fodder, presently poor feeding practices and inadequate quantity of quality fodder in the villages causing lower milk production and further prevents the community from opting our high breed animals • Market: Presently diary activity is carried out as an individual household rather than as collective community activity. In the absence of aggregation of products the markets are not interested to extend their services to the villages considering insufficient quantity for milk collection. • Storage: Milk is highly perishable commodity and requires facility to protect them from wastage; the storage facility also helps the market to collect the milk at their convenient time besides helping the community store their products safely. Even if there is a delay in collecting the milk the produced relived of worry over their product. • Breed: Presently the community rears the local breed and it found to be economically unproductive and earns lesser profit for the families. There is an urgent need to introduce to highly competent breed capable of producing higher yield and needs cost effective maintenance and feeding support. • Micro Insurance: Poor penetration of micro insurance products and very low knowledge on micro products makes the community more vulnerable to natural disaster; they don’t have any indemnify arrangements to protect their assets against any possible theft, death and damages. • Access to finance: Poor fishing households don’t have access to dependable and fair financial assistance to meet their emergency needs. Their access to formal financial institutions is very less. That prevents the community to commence an alternative income generating activities.
Proposed Strategy
The programme developed a diverse but integrated set of components. Livelihood diversification or Alternative livelihood promotion is a complex multi dimensional problem, which needs to be addressed through a diverse set of social, economic and capacity building interventions but within a coherent, holistic strategy for effectiveness and impact. The formulation and design of this programme closely reflects the fact that dairying is a main well known and secured economical occupation for majority in the area, which can be easily taught and manageable, being indigenous skill in terms of procuring, caring and marketing the product.
• Fodder cultivation: ASSIST would provide adequate technical and financial assistance to the local community to raise fodder. The activity will be carried out on common lands and in the absence of suitable lands the program may consider providing financial assistance to lease the lands. • Capacity Building Programs: Capacity building livelihood context is about strengthening the ability of community organizations and its members to lead, govern and manage its business to deliver outcomes. It develops structures, systems, people and skills so that the organization is better able to define and achieve its objectives, meet statutory requirements and fulfil obligations associated with funding. The project plans to train beneficiaries, NGO staff, department staff and volunteers on veterinary management, program management, convergence and veterinary care respectively. • Village Level Volunteers: The project would develop trained personnel so that the community will be self reliant on attending the immediate and ordinary/ simple health needs of the animals • Provision of animals: The project would identify vulnerable and poor households and would provide assistance to buy animals. The repayment by these beneficiaries to the community revolving fund enables to provide an opportunity to extend the facility to the needy families in the region. • Formation of Producer cooperative: ASSIST would provide technical, managerial and financial assistance to set up a producer cooperative in each village, efforts will be taken to congregate the smaller units through promoting an apex body which would govern and manage the cooperatives
Impact:
• Alternative livelihood promotion through the proposed project would benefit the target families to rise the family income enabling them for family well being • Additional employment is created involving the majority in the family • Exposure to various programmes enhance their knowledge and skills • The continued cohesiveness of groups will strengthen their activity • Value addition in the same occupation/activity would facilitate for new avenues • Capacity building activities enables to seeking their rights and entitlements • Self management ability strengthen their capacities to undertake more enterprise • Enhanced awareness on health and education for themselves and for their children • Increased participation in community activities and attracting governmental support • Functional literacy and numerical literacy
Risk Coping Mechanism:
• For the poor, building productive assets and increasing income are a long and risky way out of poverty. Shocks like illness, fire, or theft can cause severe setbacks in the process of accumulating assets, and often force them deeper into poverty. Even shocks that would only mildly affect upper and middle-income households can dramatically reduce the assets of poorer households, eliminate their income sources, reduce consumption, and thus adversely affect their ability to improve their social and economic welfare. To cushion the shocks, these households borrow from informal sources, withdraw their savings, or sell productive and non-productive assets. • But enough care is taken to see that the asset is insured on individual basis. Micro insurance services complemented with other financial services like credit or savings are planned in the project with the contribution from the beneficiary to facilitate concrete protection to the milch animal Sustainability plan
Provision of livestock will also develop manure within the village and will be useful for farming community instead of going out for manure. This intervention will ensure that the women are also empowered and they achieve gender equality in the community as well as in their families. Enriching small farmer and landless labour families through a more holistic and self-reliant approach not only in terms of improvement of income, employment and nutritional status but also in terms of fostering community development, gender empowerment and protection of environment, is envisaged on the larger canvass of ‘rural development’ using dairy as a tool.
It is expected that each of the milch animals will yield milk for duration of 9-10 months. Once the village has substantial number of livestock units, veterinary services can be ensured and market tie-up can be developed with the dairy units for disposing off the produce with more profits. The livestock owned have to be constantly improved both qualitatively and quantitatively so that it becomes a viable enterprise for the fisherman families. This can be achieved through providing adequate extension services and investment support. The cooperative milk union formed in the village will take over the responsibility of looking after the activities even after the completion of the project.
Promotion of Biogas/Vermi-compost units
Increase in animal population paves the way for adoption of indigenous renewable technologies by the people for producing the natural energies and gas, so as to bring down the costs on fuel consumption for cooking and also electricity for lighting. Also development of Vermi-compost units will fetch additional income for the families. Both the Biogas and Vermi-compost units require the animal dung as bye product for the production. With the provision of diary in the target villages, the availability of dung increases, thus accessing the villagers for the new technologies. Establishment of these units is now being subsidised by Government, enabling the beneficiaries to easily access them
