Shoat Rearing Brings Livelihood Changes
Ato Alemu Getie, aged 50, lives in Ginaza kebele, libokemekem woreda. He has 8 families, and is a father of 6 children. Regarding his educational status, he reads and writes. His wife, w/o Tseganesh Gashaw, also completed grade two. She writes and reads, too. The existence of this clue has enabled them to teach all of their children even though they were poor. Their last little kid is learning at grade two. The elder one was graduated from university.
Agriculture, crop production and livestock production, is his means of livelihood. Initially, Alemu had small plot of land, 0.25ha out of which 0.08 ha is irrigable. He had also only one ox and one cow. He had nothing above this. Poor land management system accompanied with less use of modern agricultural inputs, such as fertilizer, had resulted in low productivity of land. This forced him to rent land to others. This caused him to lead food insecure family. He used to engage in a daily laborer to cover living costs, like medication cost, scholastic materials cost etc. He said, “Life was full of miserable.”
In the meantime, ORDA Ethiopia`s Integrated Community Development Project begun to implement in libokemekem woreda. Hence, Ato Alemu was targeted by the project.
He had prepared a business plan in shoat rearing value chain activities, and then the project facilitated loan amount ETB 11300 to him from Birhan tinsae Rural Saving and Credit cooperatives (RuSaCCO) in 2020. Additionally he got training about shoat rearing.
Based on the business plan, he had borrowed the loan, and bought 5 ewes and 1 ram in 2020. By fulfilling the packages, he started sheep rearing. Currently, he has teen sheep (five heads having five lambs). He sold sheep about 30,900 birr. He slaughtered four sheep for holiday. He also paid back his loan on time.
To expand his business, he bought milking cow with cost 24,800 birr. He also bought one ox and now he has two oxen for farming. He also bought three beehives with bee colonies. In addition, he started selling milk and getting ETB 2500 per month.
“The income generated from shoat rearing helped me to create other assets like milking cow. This enabled me to be food secured.” said Ato Alemu.
Ato Alemu is one of thousands of farmers who have benefited Glimmer of hope supported project in shoat value chain activities. Between 2019 and 2023 year, 4047 new households have been given ETB 63,638,600.00 amount of loan only in value chain activities through the project. In addition to this, the project has constructed four small scale irrigation schemes, benefited 493 households. Moreover, 95 water schemes were also constructed by the project and benefited 23,016 people.
“ICD project has showed us good practice. In shoat rearing aspect, the project has brought new sheep breeding in our woreda. As a sector, we will sustain and scale up this practice to non project targeted kebeles,” said Libokemkem Worda Livestock Office Head.
Ato Alemu Getie, 50, lives in Ginaza kebele, libokemekem woreda. He has 8 families, and is a father of 6 children. Agriculture, crop production and livestock production, is his means of livelihood. Initially, Alemu had small plot of land, 0.25ha out of which 0.08 ha is irrigable. He had also only one ox and one cow. Poor land management system accompanied with lack of engaging other income generating activities made his life difficulty. He said, “Life was full of miserable.
In the meantime, one of ORDA Ethiopia`s project, Integrated Community Development Project (ICD), begun to implement in libokemekem woreda. Hence, Ato Alemu Getie was targeted by the project. He had borrowed the loan through the project facilitation, and bought 5 ewes and 1 ram in 2020. Currently, he has teen sheep (five heads having five lambs). He also paid back his loan on time. To widen his business, he bought milking cow with the cost 24,800 birr. He also bought another one ox and made his oxen two for plough by adding extra money from other sources. Additionally, he bought three beehives with bee colonies.