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NewsMy Goat, My Village News Letter
The first issue of the livestock magazine ‘My Goat, My Village’ is in your hand. As a one of the largest livelihoods goat farming is yet to get due recognition and importance from mainstream institutions. Goats are regarded as first animals to be domesticated. However it remains a traditional subsistence livelihood with high product demand but low production efficiency. High mortality and morbidity of goats leads to economic, social and mental tragedy for rural households. This depletes most critical assets of poor families and exposes them to risks and vulnerabilities. Women are worst sufferersof such tragedies due totheir high involvement with small livestock and have to take care of ailing animals, which consumes significant time and energy. Such lossof livestock leads tocoopingof families byselling food grains and even stopping child education and opt for long distance migration. Similarly livestock disease surveillance system and knowledge based support to village livestock farmers had been almost absent and no helps come in sight when their livestock gets sick or they want to adopt new practices to improve productivity. Present decade may be termed as information revolution with access to mobiles and internetson rise. Mobile has become a part of day to day life. Mobile phones provide a new and distinct way to communicate information, but for rural goat farmers mobile had not been able to help in their livelihoods. Can mobile phones be converted as a livelihoods support tool in hands of poor goat farmer? That was question at The Goat Trust we have pondered since last three years. Result came in form of a whole support systems of SMS,voice SMS and E- commerce site developed to help them. The Goat Trust promoted over 1500 Pashu sakhies (Livestock Nurse) from almost equal number of villages and now supportingthem through regular updateson seasonal preventative practices adoption and local dissemination in Self Help Group (SHGs) and Goat rearers Groups (GRGs). Low costoperation enables us to reach to Pashu Sakhi in remote part of the country and through Pashu Sakhies to a goat farmer in need with regular updates. Similarly Pashu Sakhi can consultour expert through call and voice SMS. Even community based Insurance messages can be easilysend for technical monitoring and claim process initiation for settlement of claims. As this is first use of using mobile to link with goat farmers for a business facilitation, developing equitable market and enabling poorest to take advantage of technology, this program is taking shape slowly but steadily. There remain a gap between technology and goat farming, Let us begin a movement to help outgoat farmers with latest information and technology to the fullest. Sanjeev Kumar contact :sanjeevfaculty@gmail.com
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