4.2 Materials and methods
4.2.3 Participatory Rural Appraisal
Participatory rural appraisal (PRA) techniques used in this research included gender analysis, wealth ranking and feed calendar development. Preparatory meetings were held with the livestock owners who volunteered to participate in the study in each district. In the Bugesera district, meetings were held at the Nyamata sector which was the most convenient place for all farmers from the three sectors. In the Nyamagabe district, these meetings were held at the Ngiryi cell in the Gasaka sector as this was central for all selected farmers within the sector. The aim of these meetings was to explain the objectives of the research study, the expected outputs, as well as the use of participatory rural appraisal (PRA) tools. Prior arrangements were made before undertaking the PRA exercise in each district by talking to agriculture and livestock providers in each district and visiting selected farmers at their homes. Livestock providers during that time were the representatives of the MINAGRI, HPI and SCR at sector level. The two latter
1. Experience the farm and farmer situation
2. Jointly identify problems and opportunities
3. Prioritize and refine statements about problems and opportunities
4. Design agronomic research in the context of
whole farm and development issues from (3)
5. Implement and manage the experiments
6. Collect data and maintain farmer collaboration
7. Jointly interpret and extrapolate;
draw out relevant concepts
Used in other problem situation or organizational contexts Innovate
Refine
Facilitate on other issue
Re-evaluate
organisations provide dairy cows to the farmers in collaboration with the MINAGRI. The meetings were held during the dry season (month of August 2007) when farmers were almost available because it was not a cropping season.
During these discussions, the following questions were addressed: (1) what role do livestock play in the livelihoods of crop-livestock farmers in the Bugesera and Nyamagabe districts? (2) How does the forage flow in the farming system? (3) What are the main constraints in keeping livestock?
The first question was addressed through discussions in a group of twenty farmers and with service providers (representative of Ministry of Agriculture at sector level, HPI and SCR) in each selected area. These service providers were not present in the farmers‟
meetings but had given their responses during previous meetings. The second and third questions were addressed through participatory elaboration of a feeding calendar. Farmers were grouped into the same categories in terms of wealth and gender. In each group, criteria for feed resources rating were defined, followed by a ranking exercise based on individual scores for each feed resource. This allowed participation of all farmers, avoiding bias or domination by some farmers in the exercise. Wealth ranking and gender analysis were done in group discussions.The specific objectives of this exercise were: (i) to assess the distribution of livestock farming activities differentiated by gender and (ii) to determine the distribution of wealth within the community based on assets owned and income generation.
The results were used to determine the link between livestock ownership (critical herd sizes) and wealth. At the same time, the relation between wealth standard by social category and farmers‟ motivation to invest in forages for dairy farming was investigated.
This was contrasted with the assessment of current feed options in terms of proportion and availability throughout the year.
4.2.3.1 Gender analysis
An exercise to determine the effect of gender on livestock ownership and control was done with women (did not differentiate single or married) and men forming separate groups. Each group of ten males and ten females did an independent exercise in which they stated their activities in livestock farming and the role of boys and girls as the members of family involved in these activities. After independent work, all groups came together and presented their activities. This allowed each gender category to express its thoughts about livestock farming activities. Through an activity profile, farmers arranged seasonal constraints and opportunities throughout the year. It is in this context that the role of gender in livestock rearing was determined. The objective of this exercise was to assess the role of gender in livestock farming activities in the contrasting low rainfall and acidic soil districts.
4.2.3.2 Wealth ranking
Wealth raking is a method where community members meet and categorize farm households based on the wealth possessed by each household in a selected area (Phiri et al. 2004). For this study, farmers themselves identified criteria to determine the different categories of wealth in the community. This exercise was done by using the list of households who owned livestock in the areas of the study; this was done in a group of twenty farmers (ten females and ten males). The group used characteristics that the community used to determine the household‟ wealth and each household from the list in the area was categorized by wealth. The objective was to determine the distribution of wealth within the community based on assets owned and income. This will enable links to be determined between livestock ownership (critical herd sizes) and well-being of farmers. The results will be used to establish the link between wealth standards by social category and farmers‟ interests and motivation to invest in forage for dairy farming. It also helps to know where the intervention is needed for improving farmers‟ livelihoods (Barbara 1988).
4.2.3.3 Feed calendar development
Among the Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) techniques, feed calendar development was used in the two districts of the study area to determine the availability and use of animal feed, differentiated by wet and dry seasons. A feed calendar was drawn up by community members, in which the feed types used by farmers each month of the year were identified. A group of twenty farmers in each district listed all feed resources that they use during the year. Separately each individual farmer was asked to score each identified feed (from zero= not available to 10= highly available) according to their criteria.
A seasonal feed calendar was also developed. A matrix of feed resources (columns) corresponding to the months of the year (rows) was drawn on a paper. The group of farmers was given ten beans that were allocated between feed resources for each month according to their importance. A feed resource could receive a score of 0 to 10 based on its importance in a particular month. The importance of this exercise was to know the different types of feeds use at different periods of the year. It indicated the shortages and availability in a given month and then throughout the year. This exercise was followed by a matrix scoring where farmers indicated the availability of each feed resource in percentage according to the wet and dry seasons.