Animal, crop farming go hand-in-hand: Official

By EREBIRI ZURENUOC
TRAINING on how to grow vegetables and garden produce will not be complete unless farmers learn to also look after livestock, Anis Foundation Incorporated (AFI) says.
Foundation has over the last two years delivered vegetable seeds for farming, and livestock like goats to improve the livelihood of locals affected by development projects.
Livelihood training programme coordinator Jackson Mark said the AFI team recently visited farmers at Faiyantina LLG in Henganofi, Eastern Highlands, and distributed goats.
“Goat farming in the Faiyantina LLG will provide a lot of benefits for rural farmers, apart from just protein. Twenty new goat farmers were contracted farmers this year,” he said.
“There was an overwhelming support and satisfaction as goat farmers gathered together in Kosionte to pick up their goats.
“Thirty of them are now into their second generation, from the initial goats distributed in late 2017.
“AFI has been there since 2017, giving them livelihood training, financial training and supporting them by delivering improved seeds and seedlings from National Agricultural Research Institute (Nari), creating pathways to markets and others.”
Farmer Sox Hafiyo, from ward 5 Hogoteru village, said it was the first time that locals attended trainings on how to look after goats.
“Many of us look after pigs, but goats are all so new to us,” Hafiyo said.
“It is good because with goats, there is no need for us to find food for them. They eat any green grass and plants.
“We were taught how to make goat feed out of cassava, which is much convenient for us because most people here grow cassava.
“Goats can provide a better meat for our diet.
“We learned that waste from those animals can be dried and used as fuel for fire, something that most of us had no idea.”
Mark said despite expiration of AFI’s contract with Asian Development Bank and the Works Department to train people living along Henganofi–Nupuru road, they were still moving to and from villages, providing technical advice and linking up markets because of the need.