Learning Brief: Beekeeping, small ruminant rearing and poultry

LEARNING BRIEF: ENHANCING CLIMATE CHANGE ADAPTATION AND DISASTER RESILIENCE October 2018

Income Generating Activities: Bee Keeping, Small Ruminant rearing and Poultry

1. Summary

CAFOD, SCIAF and Trócaire (CST) are the Catholic development and humanitarian organisations from England and Wales, Scotland, and Ireland, respectively. All three organisations have worked in Ethiopia with partners since the mid-1970s and together in a joint country programme since 2009. CST works with national NGOs under its Women’s Empowerment and Resilient Communities programmes.

CST has been implementing a three year DFID UK Aid Match (UKAM) funded resilience project entitled ‘Enhancing Climate Change and Adaptation and Disaster Resilience in Rural Communities of Northern Ethiopia’ since November 2015. The project focuses on the most pressing poverty concerns and longer term climate change challenges in Tigray.

The Northern regional state of Tigray exhibits one of the highest overall poverty rates (31.8%) and food poverty rates at 37.1%i. Increasing temperature and declining rainfall has exacerbated Tigray’s vulnerability to drought, land degradation, overgrazing and deforestation, and water pollution.

The calamities of increased climate variability and change have had adverse impacts on the local communities’ livelihoods. Environmental problems such as loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services are already taking place. Food insecurity, outbreaks of water borne and respiratory diseases associated

with droughts indicate the exceptional vulnerability of the region to drought.

As such, the programme aims to increase production and productivity, diversify production and income opportunities, improve year round access to safe and clean water, improve sanitation and hygiene practices, and protect and rehabilitate natural resources.

The project is implemented through a consortium of three Ethiopian local non-governmental organizations, namely Adigrat Dioceses Catholic Secretariat- Adigrat Branch (ECC-SADCO Ad), Adigrat Dioceses Catholic Secretariat-Mekelle Branch (ECCSADCO, ADCS-M) and Relief Society of Tigray (REST) are implemented in sixteen ‘Tabias’ (sub-districts) in five ‘Weredas’ (districts), the projects aim to benefit 17,078 households, of which, 4430 are female headed households with land, 2307 female headed landless households and 2755 male headed landless households. The programme will also have 45,297 indirect beneficiaries of which 21653 are female headed households.

2. Project Context and Background This best practice case study implemented by Adigrat Diocese Catholic Secretariat-Mekelle Branch (ECCSDCO, ADCS-M) and CST demonstrates the project outcomes of two income generating activities in South Eastern Zone of Tigray.

Adigrat Dioceses Catholic Secretariat BENCH TERRACING AS A RESILENT APPROACH TO LANDLESS YOUTH

As an effort to overturn the livelihood of poor female 3. Project Implementation approach headed households and landless youth through a more stable and continuous income generation The project adopted the following approaches in mechanism, two type of Income Generating project design and implementation phase: Activities (IGA) were identified; small ruminant • Capacity building: Technical and business rearing and beekeeping. skills trainings were provided to the project participants to enhance their performance.

The project aims at increasing food and income A 5 day Business development skills training security vulnerable people in targeted Tabias of was provided to 18 selected households. The Enderta and Hintalo wajirat Woredas of Southeastern training also focused on identification of Zone of Tigray Region– Ethiopia in view of enhancing various fodder trees and grasses that can be their resilience to climate extremes. The overall used to feed participants’ livestock. Eight project focused on diversification of productivity government and project development agents and income for 2,257 households from on and off also participated in order to support the farm economic activity and creating access to and community during their day to day activities. use of land and water for 1790 households. However, this learning brief will look at the case studies of • Input supply: Following the technical and beekeeping cooperatives and ruminant rearing managerial training, beekeeping participants project participants. received inputs such as box hives, colonies and honey extractors whilst small ruminant rearing participants received poultry. All inputs are supplied on loan basis. When the loans are paid back, it is expected that the fund revolves in the community serving more vulnerable people.

• Follow up and technical support: Selected beneficiaries received follow up and technical support from government and project development agents.

• Encouraging corporative formation: By demonstrating the values and benefits of corporative through the beekeeping corporative, community members and beneficiaries were encouraged to collaborate and form a corporative. A total of six bee and honey cooperatives were formed over a period of two years.

Project Implementation Cite

Adigrat Dioceses Catholic Secretariat BENCH TERRACING AS A RESILENT APPROACH TO LANDLESS YOUTH

2

4.

Key Activities

a. Small ruminants rearing Many of the beneficiaries were dependent on rain fed agriculture which proved to be unpredictable and failed to meet the needs of the many households. Through capacity building training, beneficiaries were able to access loan to purchase their livestock and venture on new means of generating income.

Due to their low cost, small size, suitability to small holdings as well as their triple purpose of providing meat, milk and fiber, small ruminant rearing has proven to be a successful program. In addition to providing the necessary nutritional supplement to family and community dietary, small ruminants are also a great asset in providing basic livelihood needs to household members.

to accelerate the program’s effectiveness and efficiency. They have also received skill trainings on poultry management, poultry shelter construction, feed preparation and agribusiness development. Income earned by this activity is fully controlled by women.

Hence, contributing to women’s economic empowerment and resilience to income shocks and food insecurity.

b. Beekeeping and production Under the beekeeping and production program, participants were supplied with modern box hives and colonies. They were also equipped with technical skills such as colony splitting and bee management.

Selected participants were organized into cooperatives to accelerate the program’s effectiveness and efficiency. These organized cooperatives received apiary in four rehabilitated locations within a close vicinity of watersheds. Participants were trained on market oriented beekeeping, and production of honey in relatively harsh areas with limited watershed. c. Poultry production Most women prefer to engage in poultry production of the project activity due to its easy management, small space requirement and little feed requirement. Accordingly, women were selected and organized into groups

Mrs. Gidey with her chicken and the eggs she collected

Adigrat Dioceses Catholic Secretariat

3

BENCH TERRACING AS A RESILENT APPROACH TO LANDLESS YOUTH

5. Impact

Access to loan Through the support of the implementing partner The loans facilitated for project participants, allowed ECC-SDCO Ad-M, the project had the following households to own and trade livestock assets. As a result, participants were able to accumulate capital impacts through trading and saving.

Economic empowerment “The Gereb-temti cooperative received loan to start our Overall, the program has built and increased bee keeping project, after we formed the cooperative and took relevant trainings. Since then we are able to economic empowerment of households. In addition extract and sell 331kg of honey. We earned and saved to income diversification, the revenue generated around 76,000 birr.” from beekeeping, small ruminant rearing and Hindeya Zekiros: chairman of Gereb-tuemti cooperative. poultry enabled participants to acquire valuable assets such goat, sheep, chicken and bee colony that can be marketed and traded. Hence, increasing their income and food insecurity risk mitigation capacities.

Mrs. Asefu Haderaa 46-year-oldparticipant, and a single mother of 3 describes her experience below; ‘’My livelihood depended on rain fed agriculture but I never had enough to feed my children even with good harvest season. I thought about migrating to another place in search of a job but since I became part of this program my livelihood improved. I took a loan of 5000birr and skill based training to rear and manage small ruminants. I bought five goats initially and now I have about 17 goats. Now I am able to send my children to school. I intend to diversify my product by adding dairy farming.”

Mrs. Asefu with her goats: Enderta district

Skills and Knowledge Enhancement Participants’ knowledge and skills on local resource utilization for income generating activities was enhanced through the trainings on various activities such as bee-colony splitting, wax making, vaccination, market and trading skills. This has allowed participants to gain multifaceted and transferrable skills that can adopt to the market and climate conditions in their region.

Adigrat Dioceses Catholic Secretariat BENCH TERRACING AS A RESILENT APPROACH TO LANDLESS YOUTH

4

6. Challenges

offices. The bee keeping cooperatives are linked to cooperative promotion office, while the small ruminant rearing and poultry production are linked to agricultural and rural development office focusing on livestock sector (including the veterinary section). This enables further entrenches local ownership of the project, and alliance with regional development plans.

Some of the challenges highlighted by project participants are outlined below.

• lack of commitment from members of the cooperative who seek quick individual gains vis-a-vis the cooperative’s common good.

• Animal and poultry diseases leading to the death of some livestock under the small ruminant rearing and poultry production was also reported • Lack of access to Wax and drought repetition.

7.

Lesson learnt

Access to Finance: the project is also linked to local micro finance institutions. This has helped the beneficiaries to have saving accounts in the institutions, which facilitates sustainable financing for their projects.

Trócaire. (2014). ‘Feeling the heat: How climate change is driving extreme weather to the developing world’.

The project has brought several positive outcomes.

However, the key learning from this IGA activity is Ireland: Trócaire. as follows. i

Cooperation and collaboration: Establishing a strong cooperative was essential in determining the success of the bee-hive project. Cooperatives administered by proper regulation and by-laws are key to establish a common understanding among project participants, and to ensure a collaborative effort toward reaching a common goal.

8. Sustainability Through data gathered from field observation and analysis, the factor that indicates sustainability of the project is listed below; Building community capacity: the provision of training aimed at improving the capability and skills of project participants help sustain the activity and output of the project.

Linkage to government sectors: the projects are linked to different sector government Adigrat Dioceses Catholic Secretariat

5

BENCH TERRACING AS A RESILENT APPROACH TO LANDLESS YOUTH

Adigrat Dioceses Catholic Secretariat BENCH TERRACING AS A RESILENT APPROACH TO LANDLESS YOUTH

6

Adigrat Dioceses Catholic Secretariat

7

BENCH TERRACING AS A RESILENT APPROACH TO LANDLESS YOUTH

Adigrat Dioceses Catholic Secretariat

BENCH TERRACING AS A RESILENT APPROACH TO LANDLESS YOUTH

8