By : Staff Report
BADIN: The Dairy-Beef and small ruminant project of the University of Veterinary and Animal Sciences (UV&AS) Lahore in collaboration with the University of Melbourne, Australia organized “National Livestock Forum” at Serena Hotel Islamabad.
Vice chancellors of University of Veterinary and Animal Sciences, Dr. Nasim Ahmad SI, Sindh Agricultural University, Dr. Fateh Mari, and University of Education, Dr. Talat Naseer Pasha joined the daylong program. Dr. David McGill, Dr. Angus Campbell, Dr. Anna Barrett joined the forum along with the Dairy-Beef and Small Ruminant projects team from which Dr. Humera Iqbal, project manager, Dr. Hassan Mehmood Warriach facilitated the forum.
Extension managers, Heads/CEOs from research and academia, government and NGO’s from private and public sector and farmers were also participated the event. Dairy-Beef and Small Ruminant team shared their major contributions to the livestock sector within the previous decade. Dr. Humera and Dr. Haroon shared about the conventional livestock setting in Pakistan and the interventions that the project undertook to mitigate the challenges of smallholder farmers within Pakistan. To disseminate the livestock sector’s challenges in an entertaining way project teams also conducted a play.
The Dairy-Beef project builds on the legacy and outcomes of smallholder dairy extension projects which were part of the Agriculture Sector Linkages Program (Phase I; 2007-2010 & Phase II; 2011-2015), and then a Small Ruminant project started in 2017 that analyzed the small ruminant sector and value chains, and implemented research to support smallholder livelihoods in Punjab and Sindh.
These applied research-for-development projects carried out research that resulted in on-farm productivity increases of 25-30% and developed an important innovation, the ‘whole-family extension approach’. This extension approach highlighted the important roles that all family members play on smallholder farms, and ensured extension information was provided to not only men, but also women and youth.
Based on projects’ more than a decade experience, project has developed implacable models of dairy & beef extension and value chain research and was a very good chance for all of us who are working with farmers to learn from the lessons from project. Project interventions such as collaboration with wide range of organizations more than 26 having common goal to improve farmers livelihood through regular capacity building of farm advisors, farmers and overall organizations’ extension heads/managers through community of practice workshops, are highly significant to create impact at each level.
The aim of discussion was to learn from the research experience of these legacy projects and understand that these projects have only few months more to run, and the teams were eager to share their ideas and lessons with a wide range of potential partners who can use these ideas in their own projects, and development and extension programs. One of the other aims of event was to; have the different participants, collaborators, researchers, students and farmers to share their own experiences of working with projects and their working with farmers for a practice change