Managing communal pasture areas for goats in Inhassoro District, Mozambique: A manual for trainers

Abstract

The European Commission funded project, Small ruminant value chains as platforms for reducing poverty and increasing food security in dryland areas of India and Mozambique (imGoats) aims to increase incomes and food security in a sustainable manner by enhancing propoor small ruminant value chains in India and Mozambique. The project is implemented by the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) in collaboration with BAIF Development Research Foundation in India and CARE Mozambique. The project uses innovation platforms as a participatory way of identifying and testing interventions aimed at increasing smallholder goat productivity. In Mozambique, the innovation platform identified communal pasture areas as one of the interventions to increase goat production. Each project community identified one or two areas for communal grazing of goats. However, setting up of communal pasture areas and managing them sustainably requires attention to several technical and social aspects, for example, dealing with overgrazing, community agreements and overall management. Because the extension officers from CARE Mozambique did not have adequate knowledge and expertise in this area, imGoats technical consultant Michaela Cosijn and ILRI postdoctoral scientist Birgit Boogaard designed and conducted a 1.5day training course on communal pasture areas for CARE extension officers. The content of the course was largely based on an MSc thesis entitled Creation of communal grazing areas for goats in southern Mozambique: Future perspectives by Wageningen University student Yvane Marblé (available online at http://cgspace.cgiar.org/handle/10568/24710). This manual is an output of the training course and was prepared by a team of researchers from ILRI in collaboration with technical staff from CARE Mozambique and Yvane Marblé. It is aimed at trainers of extension officers and other development agents who are responsible for training of smallholder goat keeper groups in Inhassoro District, Mozambique. The authors are grateful to Ann Waters Bayer for facilitating contributions from members of the following mailing lists: Coalition of European Lobbies for Eastern African Pastoralism, Community of Practice for Propoor Livestock Development, Endogenous Livestock Development, Participatory Technology Development Forum and Prolinnova. The contributions of PierPaolo Ficarelli, Michael Blümmel and Kees Swaans of ILRI and Camila RiveroMaldonado and Amosse Maheme of CARE Mozambique are gratefully acknowledged. For more information about the imGoats project, visit http://imgoats.org.