"HEART OF AFRICA"

BURUNDI GOAT REHABILITATION PROJECT

Over the years, livestock have been a major agricultural sub-sector in Burundi, contributing significantly to food security, smallholder income and maintenance of soil fertility.  In response to the growing pressure on grazing land in recent decades, smallholders have been keeping fewer, more productive cattle while sheep, goats, pigs and poultry were -- until the crisis of 1994 -- increasing.

As a result of the crisis in 1993 and ensuing insecurity, the livestock industry was decimated and most rural families had lost all or most of their livestock.  In addition, much private and public infrastructure had been destroyed, resulting in isolation of farmers from technical assistance and from livestock medications. Because of the importance of livestock in providing manure to the intensified cropping systems of the country, crop production has been adversely affected.  Livestock-based microenterprises have also been seriously diminished and technical assistance to reinvigorate them is lacking.  

In addition, local marketing networks in which farmers sold livestock and livestock byproducts were destroyed or seriously reduced, being replaced, in part, by long distance merchants who buy low at farmgate and sell high to final consumers.  And finally, results of post-crisis restocking projects in Burundi and elsewhere demonstrate that the simple distribution of animals has no long-lasting effects in terms of sustainable and economically-based improvements to the livestock sector.

To address these and related issues, the program has created a framework for implementation that will contribute to rehabilitation of the livestock sector.