Livestock has been integral part of Nepalese economy. The rearing of animal is one of major occupation of people and main source of income throughout Nepal. The recent earthquake not only took lives and property of human. It equally killed and displaced thousands of animals. There has been co-ordination, co-operation and action for re-construction of people’s house but less thought is given on condition and re-furnishing of animal shelters. Not only animals related products were jeopardize but also indirect impacts on bio gas plant and organic manure forming was left in limbo.
The earthquake affected livestock rearing to a great extent. Livestock Farmers suffered considerable loss of livestock, mostly due to collapsed housing structures On the one hand large numbers of livestock perished, and on the other animal shelters and marketing channels were destroyed. Unable to look after the animals while residing in temporary shelters, many people had to abandon their livestock, especially cattle, buffalo, goats, pigs and poultry in areas affected. This problem is particularly acute in area where quake hit badly. The government estimated a loss of 53,369 heads of livestock due to the earthquake. In financial terms, this translates into Rs 14 billion but the Government of Nepal has not allotted a penny to compensate this loss.
Loss of livestock due to Earthquake
Cattle / Buffalo 16,484
Poultry 4, 60,805
The Post Disaster Needs Assessments (PDNA) indicated a total loss of $284 million in this sector, of which the livestock sub-sector accounted for $101 million.
The project plans to build cost effective smart cowshed without compromising quality of shed. Then followed by awareness campaign about animal care, sanitation and basic use of veterinary service will be used for capacity building of local considering gender equity.The use of integrated bio-gas plant with toilet waste formation of organic manure followed by organic farming will be encourage as sister program.
The Recovery Strategy
Animals continue to live in open space. To ensure a quick recovery, families require support to protect the health and wellbeing of livestock. Without support, these economic losses will be devastating to families who have already in economic shock.
Goal of Project
The main and only goal of the project is to construct the livestock shed, improve animal welfare condition, control livestock diseases and increased productivity of crop-livestock integrated farming.
Resilient Animal Shelter will be launched as a major to livelihoods in Earthquake affected areas of Nepal through livestock and to build up the capacity of the local animal health service providers to work in sustainable manner.
The main objectives of the program are following:
1. Reconstruction/rehabilitation of Livestock infrastructure, such as animal shelters
2. To aware and encourage the farmers about animal welfare.
3. To aware the farmers about balanced feeding for livestock.
4. To aware the farmers about compost manure and organic farming.
5. To aware the farmers about clean and hygienic milk production.
The following activities will be carried out to achieve the objectives of the program.
1. Demonstration and construction of seismic resistance Livestock shed.
3 Coordination meeting with VDC level stakeholders
4. Interaction workshops.
5. Onsite training on clean milk production and compost manure preparation.
The piloting of project will be done on small locality of Kavre (Chadani Village) in first phase where its efficiency, endurance and benefits will be evaluated and best practice will be replicated in other possible area. Chandeni, it is rural (or semi-urban) and farming / livestock management is still crucial to the local economy. The area was also very heavily affected by the earthquake.
The formal involvement in this project will just be for the two months, but embedded into the planning and organization is that the program would be able to continue maintaining sustainability and long term impacts.
FINANCING of Project
The financing of project will be done by crowd funding. The crowd funding page is being currently launched at generosity.