Animal Airlifts & Field Work Update
ANIMAL AIRLIFTS
ALBANIA
September 2005:
In September 2005 Bóthar sent 70 in-calf dairy heifers to Albania where 70 families who had been trained in how to care for them were excitedly waiting to receive them. Many thanks to all the farmers in Ireland who contributed to this most successful airlift – we can’t do it without you.
KOSOVO
November/December 2005:
Bóthar sent two airlifts of in-calf dairy heifers to Kosovo in the later half of last year. In November 2005 Bóthar sent 70 in-calf dairy heifers to families who were waiting to receive them. Then again in December 2005 Bóthar sent a further 70 in calf dairy heifer to 70 more struggling families in Kosovo just in time for Christmas. Again, many thanks to all of the farmers, donors and volunteers who helped to make those special airlifts possible.
FIELD WORK UPDATES
BURKINA FASO
Diebougou/Tiankora Rural Agriculture
Development Project
Bóthar has been working in the sub-Saharan nation of Burkina Faso since 2001, the 3rd poorest country in the world. Although we have participated in projects involving pigs, goats and sheep our main focus in Burkino Faso has been poultry projects. Alongside our main project partner Africa Sustainable Development Council (ASUDEC), Bóthar will provide 13 local hens and 2 high quality roosters to each of 600 families in the project area, with 300 ‘pass-ons’ to follow in 3 years. The project will specifically target families with children of a young school age, ensuring that the beneficiaries generate enough income to provide an education for their children, a privilege that is out of reach for the majority of Burkinabes.
KENYA
Baringo East Food Security Project
Bóthar continues to implement honey bee projects throughout sub-Saharan Africa. In Baringo East in Kenya, families suffer from chronic malnutrition due to low levels of livestock and agricultural production and environmental degradation. Beekeeping is a tradition in the area but the use of traditional log hives and Kenyan Top Bar Hives compromise production. The project plans to provide organised groups of families with langstroth beehives to improve the production of good quality honey that can easily attract domestic and foreign markets. Training on modern beekeeping practices will be an integral part of the project with an emphasis on quality, harvesting and handling of honey, which has been lacking in the past. Communities in the project areas will be encouraged to preserve and plant more trees to improve on the existing honey production levels and to stabilise the environmental situation.
ZAMBIA
Ndola Dairy Cattle Project
Ndola was once a thriving copper mining community in Northern Zambia, but the copper trade collapsed in the country and now this peri-urban area is now characterised by low household food security, low incomes, HIV/AIDS and widespread malnutrition. This project thus proposes to provide employment opportunities, mitigate the impact of HIV/AIDS, increase crop yields, household income and better the nutrition of children, and also enhance environmental management through directly assisting at least 270 needy families in HI /Bóthar- supported groups in Ndola district with 270 high-producing dairy animals and agro-ecological farming activities during a 3 year period.
THE PHILIPPINES
Community-based Holistic Development for Marginalised Families in Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao
The Southeast Asian archipelago of the Philippines will be a new target for Bóthar in the coming months. This country of over 7,000 islands and 87 million people experiences high levels of poverty due to a rapidly increasing population and an unequal distribution of wealth. Bóthar will tackle this inequality by targeting families in 3 of the main islands of the Philippines, namely Mindanao, Luzon and Visayas. A project will target 375 families of tribal and indigenous origin, in addition to upland dwellers and poor marginal farmers.
An additional 750 families will benefit from the ‘passing of the gift.’ Project families will be provided with livestock, seeds, planting materials, tools, knowledge, skills and other services to improve food production, increase income and to transform them into helping and caring communities. Livestock will be infused in multi-crop farming systems utilising regenerative and sustainable farm practices. A total of 100 water buffalos, 100 beef cattle, 500 goats, 75 pigs and 3500 heads of poultry will be distributed.
CAMBODIA
Better use of local resources for
sustainable rural communities
Cambodia emerged from decades of civil war, the rule of the Khmer Rouge and a Vietnamese invasion to finally become a relatively settled democratic state. However after decades of strife the rebuilding of the economy is proving a daunting task. 75% of the population remains in subsistence farming. Bóthar is committed to supporting 450 poor families in 18 rural communities in Pursat and Battambang provinces in north-western Cambodia to develop their livestock-based food production for improving food security and income generation and enabling community development participation. The participating families will each receive a multi-purpose cow, other related materials and agricultural skills in the course of the project.
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