Where do urban sheep go? A reflection from Burkina Faso

Especially in the Western world, there is this understanding that livestock belongs to rural area, and most of the agricultural surveys are limited to rural area, ignoring urban agriculture.
During my last year's trip to Burkina Faso, i had the opportunity to visit an urban farmer. He lives in the city of Ouahigouya in the North of Burkina Faso, and he has about 10 sheep, that he has imported from Mali if i remember correctly, a breed that fits his environment but are stronger and bigger than the local breed.

The farmer presenting his animals

His major challenge is feed. He usually get crop residue and barley water from women in his neigborhood. (Note here that there is an entry point to look at gender relations in this value urban value chain).  This local feed is usually cheaper than commerical feed or crop residue from cotton that has to be brought to town. However, local feed is not sufficient and therefore he has to rely on commercial feed. He thinks that getting a feed processing plant might reduce his production costs.

Cotton crop residue processed in the South of the country, that he bough as feed

He sells his animal to the livestock market for meat. Through the discussion we discovered that there is only one small ruminant value chain in Burkina Faso : both urban and rural livestock (both from pastoralists and sedentary farmers) ends up on the same market. The farmer did not seems to have really understood the market dynamics, as he had failed to sell his animals during the Muslim festival. But he insisted that he would sell his animals for meat as pilgrim will be coming back and buy animals on their way. It did not really convince anyone of our scientific team, and i was pretty astonished that he is targeting a meat market as he is bringing a new breed to the region. I asked him why he does not do breeding and sell off young animals to other farmers to improve their herds. Those animals usually fetch a higher market price. He made big eyes at me and admitted that he had never thought about it.

the urban sheep herd

It was a great encounter with a farmer that had started his business less than year ago and obviously was discovering how to run it. I hope one day i will get a chance to meet him again, and see what he has been learning over time and if he has taken up the breeding idea.

Shrimps made in Switzerland

Shrimp is a quite contested food, as it used to be quite a polluting production in Asia, with important antibiotics use. Also transport from these countries to Europe is very CO2 intensive as they need a cold chain.

Some young entrepreneurs address these issues by taking up the challenge to grow shrimps in Switzerland ! See the movie from the Swiss TV.



And as usual, there is much critique, there is even a request to take up shrimps into the Swiss animal protection law. Also shrimps need warm water, is it really ecological to keep shrimps in places where water has to be kept warm artificially?

An interesting initiative, remains the question, do we really need to eat shrimps? 

Rehabilitating land to decrease conflict with pastorlists

During my last year trip to Burkina Faso, I visited a community in Thiou, North West of Ouahigouya.



I was welcomed by Sa Majeste, the head of the community for a courtesy visit and present the Livestock and Fish Research program I am working on. He is also involved with the the "Association pour la Promotion de l'Elevage au Sahel et en Savane (APESS)" a very active organization around the support of smallholder livestock keepers. 

The head of the community and some representative of the community

Like many other communities around, they are cropping on some lands. When the dry season comes and fodder for livestock becomes short, they go on transhumances. Some men in each family will take their cattle South in the search for fodder. They take small ruminants (goats and sheep) with them, to sell on the way and get money meet their daily needs.
 
It is a very innovative community that has been testing different fodder for their cattle, trying on the one hand to reduce their own need to go on transhumance and on the other hand to make sure that other pastoralists coming from the North passing their land find sufficient fodder, so that no conflict emerges on on cropped land.

Testing various fodder crops including soya

On their communal land (basically owned by the head of the community), the community tries to rehabilitated degraded land. This land was quite unproductive but with smart rainwater management, biomass is now growing and can be used as fodder.

The result of rainwater management, grasses are starting to grow in areas

The community envisions that when the grass will grow plenty, then they will perceive a fee from any pastoralist who wants to stay and use the area to feed his animals. This fee will allow to cover the costs of rehabilitating the land. The area will also insure drinking points.

In order to avoid the spreading of animal diseases, there is also a vaccination park, where animals can get vaccinated efficiently.

vaccination park

The area around Thiou should become one of the zones where pastoralists are welcome within fixed boundaries and will find sufficient fodder and water along the Mali-Ghana transhumance route. In this way, conflict between pastoralist and cropping communities can be reduced.

I was impressed to discover this area and its people who believe in a peaceful pastoralism that benefits smallholders.

Chicken run ! or why it is never too late to wish you a happy new year!

There has been quite a long silence on this blog, and it time to catch up and get back on track. Indeed the end of the year has been quite busy. It was a time full of interesting work and personal changes followed by a resting time, a long Christmas leave.

A leave for rest and reflection about the year 2014. It was an amazing year for me, my first year in Kenya. Firslty, work-wise i had a great oppotunity to visit farmers around the world. It was a fascinating experience to meet semi-pastoralist in Burkina and young farmer at the edge of the dairy industrialization in India. This blog reported from India and will with delay report from Burkina Faso.

rehabilitation of marginal lands in Burkina Faso to improve fodder along the transumance route

Secondly, it is a year i spent lots of thoughts into the role of GIS, real time crowed sourced spatial data or satellite images can contribute to better agricultural practice both in crop-livestock and pastoralism systems. 

Finally, there has been all the experience in contributing to Jolly Poultry a social enterprise bringing the Kuroiler breed to Kenyan smallholders. Kuroiler breed is a improved endogenous chicken that allow smallholder to commercialize but to industrialize. It is a great option to produce organic high quality poultry meat and make those farmer benefit that need it most. Many Sundays in 2014 were spent at the Jolly Farm making me feel a bit like in the chicken run movie.

In 2015, the Jolly team hope the develop this enterprise further and insuring the more smallholder can access the Kuroiler and develop its market.

We are already one month in 2015, but it is not yet too late to wish you a happy new year may it be  fascinating. I hope you will continue following this blog despite of the long silence over the last two months.

An opportunity or the winner's curse : H&M in Ethiopia

About a year ago, i discussed the emergence of the manufacturing industry in Ethiopia, as a chance to move huge amount of rural population out of agriculture and push for more productive agriculture.
It was a movie that was very biased, towards modern slavery not looking at the opportunities that this new sector can bring to a very poor country. Especially the working conditions offered by Chinese manufacturers were actually quite good compared to other employment opportunities in Ethiopia.

Recently the German TV followed the cloth route for H&M cloth in Bangladesh and unveiled how H&M is working. H&M is also starting operations in Ethiopia because of the very low wage level.



It unveils how H&M never pays taxes, does not care at all about development of the countries their work in nor about their population. As much as manufacturing of cloth is a tremendous opportunity, it is time to look at what type of development it means. Government have the power to let H&M in, and under which conditions... Time for Ethiopia wake up and don't let its people become slaves?

sweet dreams are made of these : sweet shops as major milk consumer

When one follows the milk chain in Bihar, you discover quickly that most of the informal milk chain to urban areas go to sweet shops. I was quite suprised, as in my world milk has to be transformed in yogurt and cheese!

a typical sweet shop

We had a longer discussion with the owner. He get his milk through vendors who pick the milk from the farm. He pays about 34 rupees per liter for the best milk quality. The price is fixed based on the amount of condensed milk that he is able to make from a liter milk. So if a farmer mixes in water to get more milk, then he simply gets a lower price. 

making condensed milk in the back of the shop

In the back of the shop, there is a man with a huge pan, making condensed milk the whole day long. So we were wondering about milk shortages. And indeed, there are some peeks in demand, then he would first try to buy the packaged milk from the cooperative and then use powder milk. Interesting, as the packaged milk might also just be regenerated powder milk. 

The sweets tasted marvelously, whatever milk was used! And we proceeded our trip further.

the sweets 

Unlocking dairy market for landless people

During my last field trip in Bihar, I learned more about how landless people can make a living in rural India. Landless people often own small ruminants (goat and sheep) that they take grazing on field borders and marginal areas. These animals are the sold for meat and bring income to landless families.

a goat, not just making use of field borders

Next to small ruminants, landless people often "lease" dry dairy cows (cows that don't give milk yet). Rich farmers do not make any benefit from a dry dairy cow, so feeding in a zero grazing unit is just costly. They therefore give the cows to landless people to be grazed on marginal areas with the small ruminants. If something happens to the animal during the lease time, the owner bears the risk.

When the cow starts giving milk, then a value for the animal is fixed. The owner pays half of the value to the landless person, or if the landless person can pay half of the animal, then keep it and start making benefits from the milk.

However landless people never have money to pay half a cow, it is always the owner of the cow who gets it back and starts making good money from milk. Would a landless person get access to a dairy cow and be able to sell the milk, then it could be a sustainable pathway out of poverty.
Centre for Promoting Sustainable Livelihood (CPSL) and their RojiRoti program has decided to end this vicious cycle by offering fair micro credits to landless women to keep a dairy cow through paying half of the value to the owner.

It is not commercial micro credit : CPSL works on organizing women around rotating saving and credit organisation allowing landless people to get short term credits for health or immediate needs from each other.

An interesting scheme that seems to unlock poverty traps where landless people are often locked in.

Find out more about this here.

Arrest this vendor! or the risks of an informal milk chain

On my recent field trip in India, i have tried to follow the milk routes from the producer to the final custumer. In Gaya town, milk reaches the cities mainly through an informal chain. Vendor on their bikes, get milk from farmers and sell on the street.

A milk vendor in Gaya

We interviewed one of the milk vendor. He told me that he sells different quality of milk. The highest quality goes for 40 rupees. After some discussions, i discovered that he is adding water to his milk. Water he promised me was very clean in his home. He would fix lower prices for the lower quality milk, i.e. the one in which he has mixed water, in such a way that he get the equivalent of 40 rupees per liter of pure milk. So if he would add 1/3 of water the price would go down by 1/3. It made a lot of sense...

the vendor we talked to

The people around me started to become very nervous, shouting at him that he is a thieve and i should arrest him! We let him bike away quickly, and i understood why promoting a formal milk chains in the area is crucial. The packed cooperative milk in other towns is cheaper, comes in a cool chain and is pasteurized...

From IT to the dairy farm : when young people take up the challenge of agri-business

In India, as most of the developing world, being a farmer is equivalent of being a looser who did not get a well paid job in town. Clearly, being a subsistence farmer, producing his/her own food in a low productive manner is not a very sexy job, nor a fulfilling career. I was told, if you are a farmer in India, you won't get a wife...

Mr Rajbardhan Sharma explaining his vision

In many developing countries, and especially in Bihar, agriculture is at the edge of a transformation.
Young people have left the rural areas, the government has offered schemes to landless people, who usually would be cheap daily laborer, to move out to agricultural work. As a result, rural area suffer of a massive shortage of agricultural laborer. Also as people move to town, land because available for sale or for lease. It might sound dramatic, but is probably a once in a lifetime opportunity for young agri-enterpreneur to start their business and make a bet on increasing scale and mechanization. Being a farmer in this new context, is being a smart entrepreneur who understood that producing food is producing a product that will never become obsolete and that always will have a market. It is about taking the challenge of being the change that everyone is talking about and make money from it. I guess this agri-entrepreneur has nothing to do with the subsistence farmer who does not even deserve a wife...

On my trip to Nalanda, i met one of the very few young people who took up the challenge. Mr Rajbardhan Sharma left his well paid IT job in Banglore a year ago to start a dairy farm with his brother on this parents farm. He was lucky to be able to dispose of about 1.5 hectare of land (which is above the average in the area) and put all his savings into a well developed dairy farm with 2 milking machines.

He is delivering is 230 liters of milk daily through the state milk union. As milk price is fixed and relatively low, he is betting on reducing production costs, increasing in scale to benefit from return to scales and increased productivity. At this stage he is also making money from selling fertilizers produced from his manure.

Today, he still can get almost all the fodder from his fields that he cultivates in the rice-wheat system and some fodder grasses. He believes in an integrated farming system, but as he will increase in scale he will need to rely on the fodder market or get more land. He has not yet put a lot of thoughts about optimizing the cows' diet, to improve milk productivity. But i am sure this will be one of this next steps.

The free range space is in process to be build and can host up to 60 cows

He gets the cows from another state to ensure the good quality of his breeds. As acquiring new cows are not so easy, he is also thinking of becoming a breeder's farm for the region.

We sat there in the cow shed sharing ideas about agriculture and dairy around the world (comparing to a Dutch and Kenyan system), we were going through more or less crazy ideas on how technology and institutional innovation could disrupt the current dairy system and lift more people out of poverty. More than just an interview, we had a real exchange of ideas between social entrepreneurs and I hope that social media will help us to keep doing so! Also the agricultural world has become smaller!

I left the farm with deep respect for this young man who decided to go against all odds into agriculture and proof to his family and friends that far from being a survival job, agri-entrepreneur not only can generate good money, but also contribute positively to a social change that benefits to the people of his country!

When smallholders link themselves to market : the Kaushalya foundation story

One of the first organization I visited during my recent trip in India was Kaushalya Foundation. The first thing that really strikes you when you pass the door of this NGO, is the high amount of women working there, also in leader position.

The ILRI team with the the Kaushalya Foundation team

Kaushalya Foundation supports the creation of social enterprises, mainly trying to enable farmers to link themselves to market. To do so they enable farmers to create the so-called farmer-producer companies for vegetables, a sort of marketing company owned by farmer through which they are making bulk sales to buyers. These farmer-producer companies are separately registered companies. Each farmer-producer company also host business hub. 

The business hub explained with a mock-up

A business hub brings together all types of  services. Through this business hub, high quality seed, livestock feed, advisory services (for example on soil quality or weather forecast) to rural areas which critically lack access to these high quality services. Also theses hub offer training to groups landless women to produce farm input such as treated seeds or fertilizer or natural pesticides. Theses products are then sold through the business hub.

To enable the vegetable value chain, Kaushalya foundation is also behind some innovation. They have developed a low cost green house for vegetables. Also they have revolutionized the sales of vegetables. They have a network of vegetables carts with a new design that keeps vegetables fresh for longer. Their carts sell packaged vegetables at fixed prices, making transaction between sellers and consumer easy and quick.

The vegetable cart

Many of these technologies have been promoted by the government in other states.
Next to all these activities Kaushalya foundation organizes farmer interest groups through which they organize training, field demonstration and advice, including a software that automatically translate results from a soil test into operational advice to manage the fields.

Kaushalya foundation is behind two business hubs in Bihar, namely in Patna and in Nalanda and focus mainly on vegetable production. Nalanda is a place where the milk value chain is not yet very well organized and therefore this farmer producer company could play a key role in organizing farmers not only around vegetable but also livestock production and especially milk.

visiting one of the farmer-producer company

I was very impressed by this farmer-producer concept, and learned one important thing : the success story here is linking the right technology to the right institutions, focusing only one of the two would probably not lead to such an impressive result. A model to export to Africa?