Heifers for better livelihoods

Last week I turned 29, should I freak out? That´s like hitting the thirties.. No, I am actually quite happy about it. Growing older and wiser is not bad at all. I am glad to be in the right place in the right time, knowing what I am doing, knowing why am I doing it and above all, enjoying doing it! So many stupid things I´ve done in my life and repeated way too many mistakes, I am glad to have these brains of a 29 year old me J

Love the view but tough roads to ride. And some hundred meters from here a two meter long python crossed the road when I was walking so need to watch where you put your feet also!

My motorbike finally came to Mzuzu. Things happen slowly, yes you know it already and because of one thing and another it took quite some time for me to get my bike. But it´s here now and we are out in the field doing the work that we are suppose to be doing. 

First things first, we are terribly late with the pass-on program so that was the first thing we started to work on. How it basicly works is that a farmer is given a cow. In order to get a cow the farmer needs to sign a contract which states that the first heifer born from the cow needs to be passed on to another farmer. This way the herds will be growing and more farmers will benefit from a cow. It´s already an old program started by Land O´ Lakes and if you want to read more I found this short well written article about it, read it here.

A good khola from one of the potential farmers

Our part in this program now is to assess the potential farmers and choose who will have the heifers. It´s not the easiest job to do because we meet lot of poor people and you would want to give a cow for all of them. But you just can´t because there is only a certain amount of heifers available. We assess the farmer itself, willingness to care for the cow and commitment to dairy farming. We check the khola if it´s ready to receive a cow. And we also see that enough feed is available for the cow and the location of the farm.

The feeding trough from a khola of one of the potential farmers

Mzuzu area is so beautiful! I am glad to be finally doing the field work. It brings us to so many nice places and farmers are happy to see us. I hope things will continue this way and we have fuel to do our work *fingers crossed*.

One of our potential farmers and the kids which seems to be a lot where ever we go.