DAIRY SECTOR DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMME IN THIRUKKOVIL

The background; Practical Action facilitated a dairy sector development programme in thirukkovil of Ampara district in collaboration with the village, divisional, district and national level stakeholders with 100 farmer families during 2009/10 year period.

Thirukkovil is an agriculture and fisheries based village where dairy industry which was a key income generator and now seen as a secondary or in certain cases part time income generating or pet income generating area. Practical Action initially entered this area in 2007 for a participatory lagoon resource governance programme. With the problem identification sessions it was identified that dairy is also a potential area for development and has a link to the fisheries community in this area. Many of them the issues like grassing the cattle in the lagoon area and so on… The separate problem identifications with the dairy farmers showed 3 major areas for development. Those are the;

1. Feed management and development 2. Breed management and upgrading 3. Management of cattle (loss of knowledge, lack of knowledge and poor extension)

The project facilitated integrated dairy development programmes with the help of the relevant stakeholders. The project carried out a process of actions to try to address the said issues. The process was; Data collection of farmers, Awareness creation on dairy management, Farmer registration, Promotion of improved feeding materials (Co3 distribution), Cattle breed upgrading through synchronization and artificial insemination programme, Pregnancy diagnosis and monitoring programmes.

Promoting cattle breed improvement in Ampara through appropriate AI methods; In the problem identification sessions the project facilitated the farmers to identify and understand their issues in the dairy sector. One of the key issues identified was the loss of productive breeds during the conflict period and the increase of non productive animals (local breeds through natural crossing), which are big in numbers. Managing the feed for these herds of animals also identified as an issue. This also led the farmers to loose interest in commercial dairy farming. Due to bad management and the hot climate, the animals in this area show very silent heat signs. Therefore the farmers had issues in detecting the heat and get it crossed with a better stud (hard to find) or do an AI.

The project introduced the synchronization and artificial insemination programme along with the awareness creation on the subject for the silent heat cows, and did the normal AI for the cows showing regular heat. The synchronization is a proven technology and practice to bring cattle into heat in big herds and in cows which don’t show clear heat signs under different situations. The synchronization allows to bringing the cow into heat in 72 hrs, which make it easy to conduct the AI on time.

Subsidies; Since it was the first time synchronization programme is introduced to this community the project provided the cost for the AI siemens (SLR 52/- per double dose), the hormones (400/- per dose) and the traveling charges (250/- per cattle) of the livestock officials for this program. This was in order to demonstrate and promote this technology which is feasible and affordable by the farmers. Al together the project spent around SLR 40000/- only for insemination of 50 cattle in this area.

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Continuation / sustainability According to the routine monitoring was conducted after the AI of 50 cows. And according to the field investigations 45/50 (90%) cattle have got conceived through the AI programme. This has created an interest among the farmers on this technology. The project also planned a progress display board at the animal production department to mark the progress of the AI programme.

The extension officials are interested and the enthusiastic with the results as this will be a great record of success for their career. The number of the inquiries for such programme is reported increasing.

The divisional veterinary office Aalayadivembu have agreed to conduct the synchronization and AI breed improvement programme which was postponed due to many challenges during the coming 2 moths.

Further the government veterinary department announced a synchronization AI programme in this area to cover 200 cattle. This is the first time government stating this synchronization programme for cattle after a very long period.

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