Small But Smart to Raise Income-Goat Farming Good
Small But Smart to Raise Income-Goat Farming Good Farming
Goat as a small ruminants is highly potential for smallholder farmers in terms of raising income and uplifting livelihoods. The presented case study entails the story of Ms. Kalpana Devi Bayak-39, a mother of 4 children from Turmakhad VDC-9, Achham district. The region itself belongs to resource poor area and geographically isolated from all the means of development where the story of Kalpana Devi is much more awful.
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Raring of small ruminants and cattle farming is not new for Kalpana Devi and other community people. At the beginning, she had 5-7 goats which can be counted as main source of income. Income from the goats was not sufficient and she had to look for other labour work to feed her kids.
Her story on the commercial goat farming starts when Thulo Community Forest User Group (TCFUG) approached to High Value Agriculture Project (HVAP) on Goat Value Chain Sub-Project with the close coordination and facilitation of WAC Nepal two years ago. Journey of her involvement on various social development activities has begun then after.
She got support for goat shed management, vaccination and involvement on Business Literacy Class that groomed her to be a successful goat entrepreneurs. She had 15 goats when she thought she would be doing goat farming as a business. Now, she has more than 50 goats from which she has been earning handful amounts of money. Only this year, she earned approx. NRs. 200,000.00 (in words: Two Lakh) from goats and still she has got 35 goats left at her sheds. From these days, she does not have to look for buyers anymore because she found market at her own shed as the traders from various places such as Surkhet, Nepalgunj and even from Pokhara her goat farm. She says, she can earn more than 2 lakhs per year from the goats. Currently, goat market is getting bigger and bigger, it even supply to Kathmandu from her places. “Life became much easier”, as she said. To manage basis needs and necessity such as schooling to her kids, managing family health and buying necessary things became ease for her. Currently, her son is studying in Surkhet and regularly medical check-up her daughter who has health problem since long is being managed from the goat income.
.“Now, she became a means of inspiration at her village. She even encourages others to do similar business so as to improve living condition”, as mentioned by her community.