E-SLIP interventions delight East smallholder poultry farmers

By GLORIA SIWISHA

DIFFERENT farming communities in Zambia, share livestock in order to empower themselves and sustain their lives.

This is because rural farmers generally operate under difficult circumstances characterized by limited access to financing or capital to boost their businesses. 

In Eastern Province, the concept of ‘passing on the gift’ to other community members is called “Kuvuula” by both the Chewa and Ngoni people, and through such noble undertakings, communities have been able to co-exist from generation to generation.

The Ministry of Fisheries and Livestock also employs this concept in its Enhanced Smallholder Livestock Investment Programme (E-SLIP), a programme which is being implemented in partnership with the International Fund for Agricultural Development ( IFAD), and the OPEC Fund for International Development (OFID).

Under its livestock stocking and restocking sub-component, E-SLIP empowers women and youths in rural communities with livestock packages so as to maximize employment creation, reduce malnutrition, improve household incomes and reduce poverty amongst the Zambian people.

The livestock packages that E-SLIP gives to beneficiaries through this arrangement include goats, rabbits, cattle, and improved village chickens.

Those smallholder farmers that receive such gifts are expected to give the offspring of that livestock to the next set of beneficiaries [usually of their choosing], so that the programme is sustained.

Anzelu Multipurpose cooperative in Chipata district, is one of the successful beneficiaries of E-SLIP’s livestock stocking and restocking programme.

Established in 2020, the cooperative currently has 18 members; 10 who are women, and 8 men. Four of the men are youths.

Cooperative chairperson,  Alex Mwaba said in an interview that his cooperative received 28 improved village chickens on 11^th October, 2021, on condition that they pass on the same number of chickens to another cooperative of their choice once the parent stock had multiplied.

The cooperative also received an incubator early in 2022 through the office of the District Commissioner.

Mr Mwaba said prior to the acquisition of the chickens, cooperative members were provided with training on group formation management, market-oriented chicken rearing, and disease control.

“In addition to the training,  E-SLIP guidelines required each member of the cooperative to contribute about 10 percent towards the cost of managing the chickens, which in our case was K224 per person. This money was not to be paid to E-SLIP; but rather it was for us members, to use to buy vaccines for the chickens in case of disease outbreaks, as well as feed. In other words, we were expected to use that money to do everything possible to ensure the success of our poultry business,” Mr Mwaba said.

He said once the chickens had started to lay eggs, the cooperative hatched them using its incubator, and that by September 2022, it successfully passed on 28 chickens to Beauty DMI Self Help Group – a women’s group also of Chipata district.

“In addition to passing on the gift to another cooperative, we have also managed to share the chickens amongst ourselves with each group member receiving 10 chickens. We have managed to share this number of chickens as the parent stock has been multiplying from the time we received it,” he said.

Mr Mwaba hailed the programme for enabling smallholders have access to small livestock that has improved their household incomes and nutrition security.

 “Through this programme, the cooperative has also had the opportunity to host Chasa Boys secondary school pupils, who wanted to know how we were keeping the chickens and also controlling poultry diseases such as ‘Newcastle disease’. This is a milestone that we are very proud of,” he said.

And a cooperative member Alifonsina Banda, 51, of Aslot compound in Chipata, said the rearing of improved chickens had not only increased incomes but that her household also has a consistent supply of proteins from the eggs and the birds themselves.

Meanwhile Josephine Daka, who is a member of Beauty DMI Self Help Group – a beneficiary group of the livestock pass on programme, said her group had been keeping chickens prior to Anzelu Cooperative gifting them the 28 improved village chickens, but that the business had not been doing too well.

“One of the reasons for our failure in the poultry business was because we lacked the necessary knowledge and skills in chicken rearing. We also did not have a permanent place where we could keep chickens from,” she said.

She said the 28 chickens received from Anzelu Cooperative had helped to revive the almost dying business.

“However, we still do not have a permanent place where we can keep our birds; Therefore, we have resolved to share the 28 birds amongst group members so that we each take care of the birds from our respective homesteads. Our goal is to increase the population of the chickens so that we too pass on the gift to another group of our choice as per programme guidelines,” Ms Daka said.

Her appeal is that E-SLIP extends the livestock trainings to those groups that receive livestock through the pass-on-the gift scheme.

Anzelu Cooperative and Beauty DMI Self Help Group, are certainly not the only groups in Chipata district that attribute their successes to E-SLIP’s livestock stocking and restocking programme.

Sunshine Youth club which currently has 36 members (30 women and 6 men), has also excelled from its initial business of working in other people’s fields and selling fritters, to become a model chicken rearing group owing to the same programme.

Rhoda Kamanga, 40, who is the chairperson of the club said her club received 30 chickens in 2022 which started laying eggs two weeks later.

“The chickens were laying at least 15 eggs per day and on a good day, we would pick over 16 eggs especially if properly fed. Each time we collected a good number of eggs, we would take them to the incubator for hatching and that’s how the chicken population increased to 300,” she said.

Sunshine youth club has already passed on 28 chickens to a cooperative of their choice and members shared the rest amongst themselves equally.

“Our sharing of the chickens is also to see whether group members have fully grasped the concept of chicken rearing,” she said.

Ms. Kamanga said the concept of passing on the gift should continue for years to come as it is helping to alleviate the sufferings of rural households.

“E-SLIP’s livestock empowerment programme is really helping farmers in many ways. For example, when I decide to sell any of my roosters, I usually sell each at between K150 and K200. That’s good money that helps me to rent fields for the production of crops, as well as purchase fertilizer,” she said.

The Zambian government has identified the livestock sub-sector as having the greatest potential to drive the diversification agenda in the agricultural sector.

It has therefore continued to promote the growth of the sector through such initiatives as the E-SLIP’s livestock stocking and restocking programme.

If beneficiaries were to fully embrace the initiative, the country would lessen livestock disease outbreaks; increase its livestock population, alleviate poverty amongst rural communities, and at the same time, accelerate economic diversification through the livestock sub-sector.