Dear all,

Guillaume informed me that he picked up the package with the seeds and he'll travel back from Kinshasa on Monday. I'm so very excited the community will start cultivating soon! :-)

Thank you all for your contributions to the preparations for the learning farm.

We contacted around 30 organizations to around 50 addresses. Many of them responded giving us more contacts that we also emailed.
There are two possibilities for now to have a training - from Heart of Africa, Burundi and from FOPAC from Bukavu. Let's keep fingers crossed to get a positive reply soon from them.
We should continue searching for more organizations and contacting them. In the case we don't ensure the training now, we should try to get someone to train the people later when the learning farm is already set up and running.

Since the deadline is approaching, we should also prepare manuals in the case we don't have the training by that time.
A new neighbour from Australia, Scott, has joined our team to help us prepare graphic manual that would be easier for the community to learn from. Let's help Scott with suggestions how the manual should look and what it should contain.

Besides, we were helping Guillaume to find out about the dairy goat breeds available around as well as the sellers, so we contacted Ministries of Agriculture in DRC and the neighbouring countries. Otto from Ministry of Agriculture and Animal Resources, Rwanda is interested to help us and has been asking around about the sellers and the prices. From Burundi we got the info that they don't have the sellers but import Alpine goats from Uganda.

Keep up good work. :-)
Sonja

Guys,

Since wiki does not work properly I'm posting here the organizations we contacted by now for the training:

Rural Poverty Portal (IFAD)
Elevages Sans Frontieres
RIRDC
ILRI
Vétérinaires Sans Frontières
Caritas
Heart of Africa Burundi (Goat Rehabilitation Project)
Farm Africa Kenya
Bothar
Heifer Uganda
World Vision
DDC
Action Aid
Never again Rwanda
Coocenki
CARE
JENGA Uganda, dairy project in association with Farm Africa
National University of Butare, Rwanda
ASARECA
International Dairy Federation
Dairy Outlook
Matiti Project-Goat milk project BundiNutrition Fund
Institut interculturel dans la région des
Cooperative Centrale du Nord-Kivu
Swiss Cooperation
Goal
GTZ

Also for the breeds available:

Minstère de l'Agriculture et de l'Elevage
Brazzaville
Congo

Dr Brigitte Kajinga Mutombo
Département de la production et de santé animales
Kinshasa
Congo, Democratic Republic of

Ing Eliakim Hakizimana
Département de la Promotion des Productions Animales
Ministère de l Agriculture et de l Elevage, Direction Générale de l ELEVAGE
Burundi

Dr Otto Vianney Muhinda
Rwanda Animal Resources Development Authority
Ministry of Agriculture and Animal Resources

Dr Daniel Kiwanuka Nelson Semambo
Animal Breeding Centre
NAGRC & DB
Uganda

Dr Sachindra M. Das
Animal Diseases Research Institute (ADRI)
Ministry of Livestock Development
Tanzania

Juvenal Kanani
National University of Butare
Rwanda

Thanks for the great work Sonja.

If feels liek we are having a great momentum now.

I look forward to whatever keeps coming. And look forward to Scott's input too.

Raul

Dear all,

Guillaume arrived home from Kinshasa. Hope to hear soon the news about the community.
From the people from GTZ we got some contacts in Bukavu that possibly give goat training, and it turned out that one of them is Guillaume's University colleague :-). So if he really does give the training, Guillaume believes he will be happy to help us.
Keep fingers crossed :-)

Besides, we got an answer from Farm Africa Uganda, they say it's expensive to come to Walungu, but they are willing to give the training if someone comes to Mbale where they are located (which is great since their training is rather expensive).

I'm sure we will get the training in some next period, if not at the begining then some time soon.

I wish you all a nice day.
Sonja

Dear neighbours,

We have a problem with locating the sellers of milk goats in area.

I talked to Guillaume today, and he said that the only source we know for sure is in Beni, DRC, which could reach 300$ a goat included transport. Besides, that's the last option because of security reasons.

Dr.Kanani told me that in Rwanda there are Alpine for 50$-100$ but I still didn't get any info from him about the sellers.

We would need to locate the milk goats sellers in Rwanda (peferably), Burundi or Uganda (somewhere near the DRC border). Any ideas how we could approach this problem?

Let's try to find info as soon as possible.

Sonja

Hi Sonja,

Per our earlier conversation- I emailed Concern Worldwide.They have distributed over 1100 goats in North Kivu, I hope they will be able to share market locations information with us.
http://www.concern.net/what-we-do/where-we-work/a721/Democratic-Republic...
towards the bottom.

Good night everybody :-)
Tanja

Thanks Tanja,

Hope we'll get some info from them. Do you know whether they distributed milk goats or indigenous ones?

Anyone else with the ideas?
I think those Alpine from Rwanda for example would be excellent, but how to locate where we could buy them?

I found out about some sellers from Uganda and Rwanda, but their goats are way too expensive.

Looking forward to hearing from you guys,
Sonja

Hi there,

Here is the information from Concern:

"In the first phase we got goats from Uganda, of which many died. The conditions were too harsh and different for them in Masisi. For the second phase of the programme we introduced a fare system: We identified beneficiaies and organised a number of fares to which a certain amount of beneficiaries were invited (we couldn't do all of them in one day, so it was done over a number of days throughout the year). The beneficiaries each got vouchers to the value of a good healthly adult goat (c. USD$30 if I remember correctly). We then invited goat traders to come to the fare site on a certain day and the beneficiaris and traders did all their own negotiations - we organsied the site and managed information/sensitisation, logistics, security, finance and administration.

Some got one adult, some others two kids etc; that was their choice. Then at the end of the fare the traders swopped their vouchers for money directly with Concern.

It worked well for the beneficiaries as they were in charge of choosing their own animals (and seeds) and the negotiations were empowering. For us, it meant that we didn't have to face the logistical challlenges of transporting 1,000's of goats over dfficult terrain. Also the goats were usually from the area so the survival rate was far higher than the imported ones.

We are doing the same in Maniema; and there is an element of rotation; the beneficiaires of which are chosen by the communities. "

I hope to get some more information about where Concern found the goat traders. Keep your fingers crossed :-)

Guillaume,
Do you know anybody in Maniema or Masisi that can help with some more information?

Based on the information about the first phase may be we should reconsider getting goats from Uganda.

Best,

Tanja

Hi Tanja, thanks for this input.
Yes, Uganda seems to be a bit far away, and it would be perfect to find the goats in Rwanda or Burundi. However, they also import the goats in Burundi from Uganda, so I guess that might work for us as well if we don't find anything better.

A Nabuur neighbour from Rwanda gave us a contact from Butare Uni who might be able to help us to find the goat sellers. Guillaume travels to Goma today to meet him.
Keep fingers crossed guys :-)

Cheers!
Sonja

Hi guys,

Guillaume met the guy from Rwanda today, he has a friend who is a milk goats seller, but he doesn't know about the breed and price, so he'll check it and inform us, hopefully during the next week.

Take care everyone,
Sonja

Good morning :)

I received some information from Concern about their local partner in Goma. Guillaume and Sonja, I will email you the contact details.

Best,
Tanja

Hi all,
I got the Mr Johnattan on the telephone who was in touch with the seller who would like to know which race are we looking for and I proposed them as follow:Toggenburg , Anglonubian and they can tell us which race they have incase they have not this.

I'm waiting for his answer.I'l keep you informed about the going on.

Guillaume kahomboshi

Thanks a lot Tanja.

Looking forward to hearing from Jonathan about the breeds and prices.

In the meantime I got an info from Ministry of Livestock Development, Tanzania:

"The dairy goats available in Tanzania are 1. Toggeburg, 2. Anglonubian, 3 Norwegian goats and 4 Saanen goats.

Those that will be suitable for Walungu in DRC could be the Toggenburg in Babati District, or Anglonubian in Arusha and Moshi areas. The Norwegian goats are available near Morogoro town (Mgeta villages). These could be sold and the price ranges from 100,000 to 200,000 per goat.

I would advise you to start taking the crossbred dairy goats (does -female goats) and purebred bucks (males) to see if the goats adapt well to the climate and disease challenge in Walungu area of DRC."

It would be great to get a pure breed male, but I guess a crossbred would do well to, since I think that pure breeds are much more expensive... But who knows...

100,000 - 200,000 (I guess Tanzanian currency?) should be 90 - 170 USD?

Guillaume, how does this sound? Are these regions too far away from Walungu?

Take care,
Sonja

Guys,

Jessica Fagerhaugh wrote a developing story about Walungu. You can read it here

http://www.nabuur.com/modules/news/news_details.php?newsid=197&type=resu...

Cheers!
Sonja

Nice story.

Thanks for the mention

Raul