Piggy, Please Grow Up
Last weekend, I invited George to give the Haysali farmers a crash course on pig husbandry.
We arrived one day before the training so we could do some family visits. One of the objectives of the visits was to identify low-income families and determine who sould qualify for special assistance we plan to offer. Soon we realized that just about everyone we visited was living in poverty, even based on Tanzania standards. Our main focus was also to understand how the farmers took care of their pigs and identify areas that needed more training. Most pigs were infected with parasites/lice/ ticks, and were much smaller than average. This further confirmed that training was much needed to help them grow pigs faster and bigger to generate more income.
The next morning, we joined the village chairman again for more family visits. This time we came with IVOMEC for parasite contro. George injected it to some pigs. It was fun watching the kids chasing after the piglets as they cried out and tried to run around. Most families were spread out in the mountains so we did a lot of hiking, up and down the hills in order to reach them. I was completely enthralled by the beautiful scenary and didn't even realize how far we had walked.
On the way back, the chairman spoke to George in Swahili about the concerns for the training. He said that some villagers did not feel that the training on pigs management was necessary as they they already knew how to raise pigs. They wanted the focus to be on cattle instead. It was clear that some farmers were fixed on the old way and not open to new ideas.
Before the training, George and I regrouped to discuss how to approach the training. We would need to explain to the farmers that it cost a lot more money and time to grow a cattle than a pig. They had not been taken care of their pigs properly to maximize the price they could fetch. If they could follow the steps outlined in the training, they would be able to grow bigger pigs and sell them in less than 10 months (as opposed to 12 - 18 months currently) whereas the cattle would take 3 years to raise before it could be sold and there was hardly any land for grazing. Given the current food shortage, for villagers and their animals alike, pigs would be a much better focus for them to rip quick profit with much less feeds.
We also sensed a bit of politics in the play. Ah... just when I thought it couldn't get more interesting than it is. More about the training in the next posting.
From Tanzania, Africa
We arrived one day before the training so we could do some family visits. One of the objectives of the visits was to identify low-income families and determine who sould qualify for special assistance we plan to offer. Soon we realized that just about everyone we visited was living in poverty, even based on Tanzania standards. Our main focus was also to understand how the farmers took care of their pigs and identify areas that needed more training. Most pigs were infected with parasites/lice/ ticks, and were much smaller than average. This further confirmed that training was much needed to help them grow pigs faster and bigger to generate more income.
The next morning, we joined the village chairman again for more family visits. This time we came with IVOMEC for parasite contro. George injected it to some pigs. It was fun watching the kids chasing after the piglets as they cried out and tried to run around. Most families were spread out in the mountains so we did a lot of hiking, up and down the hills in order to reach them. I was completely enthralled by the beautiful scenary and didn't even realize how far we had walked.
On the way back, the chairman spoke to George in Swahili about the concerns for the training. He said that some villagers did not feel that the training on pigs management was necessary as they they already knew how to raise pigs. They wanted the focus to be on cattle instead. It was clear that some farmers were fixed on the old way and not open to new ideas.
Before the training, George and I regrouped to discuss how to approach the training. We would need to explain to the farmers that it cost a lot more money and time to grow a cattle than a pig. They had not been taken care of their pigs properly to maximize the price they could fetch. If they could follow the steps outlined in the training, they would be able to grow bigger pigs and sell them in less than 10 months (as opposed to 12 - 18 months currently) whereas the cattle would take 3 years to raise before it could be sold and there was hardly any land for grazing. Given the current food shortage, for villagers and their animals alike, pigs would be a much better focus for them to rip quick profit with much less feeds.
We also sensed a bit of politics in the play. Ah... just when I thought it couldn't get more interesting than it is. More about the training in the next posting.
From Tanzania, Africa
posted by Nancy at 4:43 AM
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