PERIURBAN SMALL LIVESTOCK PRODUCTION FOR FOOD AND COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT

RAJENDRA K. RASTOGI

Department of Food Production

Faculty of Agriculture and Natural Sciences

UWI, St. Augustine

TRINIDAD

INTRODUCTION

The globalization and liberalization of trade are accepted facts of life today. This has resulted in the creation of unequal opportunities and challenges for developed and developing countries. As a result, the gap between the developed and the developing countries is widening. Different sectors of the economy are affected differently by globalization of trade and agriculture. This results in conflict, which was vividly manifested in Seattle Round of WTO Negotiations in November, 1999.

The above scenario at the world level is also mirrored at the individual country level, except perhaps more acutely. The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. This income inequality causes social dislocation and discontent – at times violent. These concerns become very evident at the individual and community level in the Small Island States, such as those of the Caribbean and the Pacific. The worse effects of globalization in agriculture are felt more acutely by Small Island States which have limited land, capital, technical and human resource.

THE PROBLEM

The rural and periurban communities in these Island States are really desperate. In such communities, there is increasing poverty, unemployment, crime and substance abuse, not to mention illiteracy. Unemployment is particularly high among the youths who need it the most in an effort to make sense of their lives. In this context, I am often reminded of the refrain of a peasant woman in Grenada who, having made sacrifices to give High School (O Levels) education to her children, was very sad nonetheless as her children could not get any work. To compound the problem further, there are hardly any purposeful income-generating activities in-and-around the home. Out of sheer boredom the youths start to "lime" around the block and indulge in many vices, including drug abuse, due to peer pressure. Under these circumstances watching too much television may, in itself, become a vice by encouraging passivity and laziness.

More and more communities are simply becoming collections of dwelling houses for the provision of shelter with very little meaningful interaction among the family members or the neighbors. The youths are growing-up without learning any skills from their parents who themselves may not have any or may not have the time to pass on. Both parents may be working in order to make ends meet and may come to the house to eat and sleep with little interaction with their children.

THE SOLUTION

In the above scenario, would it not be nice to create some useful income-generating activities in-and-around the house for youths and the stay-in spouse? These activities should be such as to create a sense of belonging and sharing among family members while generating income. Such activities should also help the youths to launch into self-employment in a more meaningful way later in their lives.

One of the many such activities can be rearing of small livestock and poultry, for example, rabbits, sheep, goat, ducks and common fowl. Such activities should be carried out on a small scale in the backyard of the family home so as to minimize risk and the need for capital investment. However, in this Paper we make a special case for small scale rabbit production which has many advantages over other types of small stock and some of these are listed below:

• small size and quiet nature of rabbits makes it easy to raise them in cities, suburbs and village communities,
• large litter size and short generation interval allows for economic returns in the short term (12 – 15 fryers/doe/year),
• rabbits are 2.5 and 4 times more efficient in extracting protein from forages than sheep and beef cattle, respectively,
• rabbits can easily subsist on waste materials from vegetable garden, family kitchen and institutional canteens/cafeterias, for example, Defense and Prison Services, Hospitals and Orphanages etc.,
• low start-up capital is required for setting-up a small rabbitry with 3 – 5 breeding does,
• rabbits are easy to slaughter at home just like chicken,
• rabbit meat is an excellent, alternative source of healthy food being low in salt and cholesterol (even heart patients are allowed portions of it),
• rabbit meat can be easily sold as novelty/wild meat to tourist industry, often at rather attractive prices, for example, to hotels and individual yachties,
• their exquisite beauty endears them as pets thereby adding quality, happiness and cohesiveness to family life,
• small rabbit enterprise can also instill in youths the leadership qualities, the ability to manage time and to make decisions wisely.

IMPLEMENTATION

It should be a partnership between governmental, non-governmental and community organizations. If there are no existing community organizations then, the development of these should be encouraged in order to empower individual participants. The implementation model may be based on Heifer Project International’s concept of free delivery of, say, 3-5 breeding animals to each family, which in turn will pass on the gift to others later. The prior training of participants is a must. The co-operation of the international Donor Agencies should also be sought. FAO, IFAD and IADB are the major agencies involved in food security and social development aspects. Initially, neighborhood markets should be exploited through, perhaps, some co-operative arrangements for slaughter. Later, however, small scale rabbit producers should be linked to large-scale processors. This is a challenge to be faced and overcome. This was done to achieve India’s White Revolution.

URL http://www.uwichill.edu.bb/bnccde/sk&n/conference/papers/RKRastogi.html