Facilitating farmer learning to improve goat husbandry in Lao PDR.

This paper describes the methods and outcomes from facilitating farmer learning to improve goat husbandry practices and productivity in Savannakhet province, Lao PDR. New husbandry practices were trialed in seven villages with 70 households in three districts and scaled out to more districts via NGO projects. Implementation methods included monthly household visits by government livestock staff, village training events, and cross village visits to encourage knowledge exchange between farmers. Farmers learnt how to build clean and safe houses, reduce kid mortality, grow and use forages, prevent and treat diseases, use mineral blocks and supplementary feed lactating does and young male goats. A Learning Alliance was established between government and NGO staff, meeting every 6 months to share technical information and experiences working with goat farmers. The evaluation methods included three structured surveys (pre, mid and post), farmer feedback sessions at learning events, and interviews with Learning Alliance members. Animal health treatments and mineral blocks were the most readily used practices due to high disease incidence in kids. Forages, goat pens and supplementary feeding were less popular due to cost, labour and land requirements. Disease incidence and mortality significantly decreased over four years. The Learning Alliance enabled an additional 500 farmers to be trained and adopt goat disease prevention and treatments. We conclude that using multiple farmer learning approaches over several years ensures capacity development is reinforced and impacts are scaled out to more households.