Skip to footer

International Fund for Agricultural Development helps Zambian women with HIV raise goats

An initiative from the International Fund for Agricultural development helps female farmers in Zambia with HIV raise goats. It's part of movement to reduce rural poverty in Zambia.

|
Salim Henry/AP/File
Workers tend to the maize crops on Millers Farm Lusaka, in Zambia, March 17, 2003. An initiative from the International Fund for Agricultural development helps female farmers in Zambia with HIV raise goats.
  • By Melody Ng Guest blogger

In the Batoka area of Southern Province, Zambia, the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) is providing support to the Harmony Women's Club, which helps women living with HIV raise goats.

The Harmony Women's Club has been receiving support through an IFAD initiative in the area, Smallholder Agribusiness Promotion Programme (SAPP). SAPP is an initiative supported by both public and private sectors of Zambia that aims to reduce rural poverty by improving the productivity, and thus the livelihoods, of small-scale farmers.

According to IFAD, approximately 75 percent of the Zambian population live in poverty, and many of the poorest households are headed by women and have members suffering from a chronic illness—many of whom are living with HIV/AIDS. Moreover, because the men often leave rural areas to seek employment in the cities, women have taken a more prominent role in food production and other income-producing activities for the household.

SAPP has selected groups in particular that are directly affected by HIV and AIDS as part of a wider effort by the government and other organizations in the country to mitigate the impact of HIV and AIDS on economic development and the population in general.

HIV and AIDS prevents many farmers in Zambia from maintaining good health and the ability to engage in farming and other income-generating labor. The prevalence of HIV and AIDS—which disproportionately affects women—and the lack of sufficient government infrastructure to support farmers in Zambia makes it difficult for small-scale women farmers to support their families.

The Harmony Women's club, founded in 2004, currently has 23 women, most of them living with HIV and AIDS. Many of the members recognize the need to maintain a basic level of well-being to be able to reap the benefits of the antiretroviral medications they take to manage living with HIV and AIDS. For the women of the Harmony Women's Club, raising goats that will yield higher market prices is crucial to earning enough income to keep themselves, and their families who rely on them, healthy.

SAPP has been involved with the club's activities to improve the nutrition and welfare of its members since 2012. SAPP has provided trainings to club members to improve their goat farming productivity, with topics including entrepreneurship, business planning, cooperatives, and "best practices" in goat farming.

Because buyers typically pay less than premium prices for the goats farmed in this area—due to the small size of local breeds—the Harmony Women's Club focuses on cultivating better breeding practices. The members believe that better breeding practices will increase the size and quality of the goats they farm and, consequently, the income they are able to earn from goat farming.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to International Fund for Agricultural Development helps Zambian women with HIV raise goats
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Business/The-Bite/2014/0603/International-Fund-for-Agricultural-Development-helps-Zambian-women-with-HIV-raise-goats
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe