Good practice

It was in February 2017 when JEN took 10 progressive farmers for exposure visit to let them gain awareness on modern livestock management techniques and practices. The visit was carried out at four locations namely, AHITI (Animal Husbandry In-service Training Institute) in Peshawar, Harichand Dairy Farms in district Charsadda, and Achai Breeding Farm in District Dir and Jaba Research Center in District Mansehara. After the exposure visit, one progressive farmer built a separate proper livestock shelter for his livestock. It took a couple of months for him to build it due to managing and organizing money for the construction.  The remaining progressive farmers also started to build separate shelters for their livestock in February and March 2018. So 9 households constructed such shelters utilizing their personal resources.

In our monitoring visit to the project site in March 2018, these farmers informed that initially they learned about the importance of a shelter for livestock in the training and later on, in the exposure visit, they observed real instances. This practice was contrary to their past knowledge that they have to keep the animals in closed rooms so that weather doesn’t affect their health. They brought out their animals from closed rooms or made the rooms ventilated. Though they wanted to build shelters, their financial constraints kept them from starting it. But they finally did it with their limited resources. These farmers said that utilization of a shelter for livestock has improved their health as well as their production capacity.

It is encouraging that the people have started to work on their own to improve  conditions for their livestock, which is a very important source of their livelihood and food security. This is a positive change in  people’s practice. However, still more encouragement from the humanitarian community is required constantly to enable the people to get back normal and decent lives.