Tackling the future challenges of Organic Animal Husbandry - vTI

! Agriculture and Forestry Research, Special Issue No 362 (Braunschweig, 2012) ISSN 0376-0723
Download: www.vti.bund.de/en/startseite/vti-publications/landbauforschung-special-issues.html
mentioned that the animal husbandry is connected to an acre (or more) of diversified agroforestry
under her management.
Animal husbandry – a women's project with the whole family ...
In the mere agricultural field Sano y Salvo's workshops like "The Family on the Organic Farm" aim
to influence both genders in their attitudes, now tackling behaviour and customs of the whole peasant
family. Role changes and what is connected to this is a transversal theme of most workshops
and meetings. The experience showed that it is not just "making men gender sensitive", what brings
us closer to sole urgent situations, but equally difficult was and is convincing rural women to accept
this new task and role, which is contrary also to their conventional or traditional behaviour, still
valid in the major part of the rural Latin American rural society, or to identify women, which have
been ready "to start off". Women of course see the danger of another workload, when participating
in extended animal husbandry, but when they begin to like the idea they help and contribute and
fight to change their men ... (husbands and sons).
Quality and quantity: Organic!
The animals' fodder demand needs' planning and production in an organized and organic way,
thinking of quality but - equally important – of sufficient quantities (which at the beginning is easily
underestimated by the female "newcomers"). Veterinary problems are showing up, and not astonishingly
most participants of our yearly repeated very practical workshop "Basic and Organic Veterinary"
are women (including many young ones). Cost calculation of production, processing, sale
etc. is often done by the young people, which have passed 5, 6 grades or more in school.
Results
Serious animal husbandry leads to family involvement
Keeping, caring for and producing a diverse game of animals in an organic setting are an agricultural
practise, which needs the whole family's involvement. Producing ducks and geese and pigs and
turkeys and chicken and sheep in our humid tropics demands diversified knowledge of the different
species, fodder, shelter, health care, fencing, pasturing, pasture rotation, permanent supervision,
book keeping, certain market analysis, protection against outside threats, organization with the other
families; being responsible for an agroforestry plot at the same time helps the women and the family
to understand the holistic nature of a family eco-farm, nutritional diversity needs and how to accomplish
them and more.
Changing men
Some men of the association felt their power in danger; this was sometimes expressed directly, but
more often indirectly like "Look, they do not achieve what they wanted, they have no knowledge,
they belong into the house, they produce losses." But the majority of the husbands like the animal
husbandry of their spouses and compañeras and are willing to accept the shift in roles and behaviour
and help to get the young people into it, too. The educational components of the training workshops
contribute a lot to this change, reinforced afterwards by practical experience and success of
the activity.
Organic empowerment
The overall success is a real "empowerment" of women, but also of the whole family, and an acceptance
of change of rules of the family, better nutrition, a clear improvement of income, controlled
by the women and more. Our internal inspection scheme's people feel that the strengthened
female participation also upgrades organic compliance of the whole membership; most women are
more future oriented as men and feel more responsible for the long term well being of the family,
which means in relation to being organic and being certified they do not risk easily this status by
inadequate practise and violation of rules and norms and do help their husbands to follow the same
honest way.
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