Tree Pods - a New Way of Feeding Goats, India

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Setting the Scene

India is the land of the goat. It has a hundred million in all. Gandhi called them "the poor man's cow". In dry states such as Rajasthan in the north-west, goats are the basis of local village economies: a source of milk, meat and, through the sale of young males, of income. When left to forage on wasteland, the animals require little attention. In districts such as Bhilwara, the endurance of the goats makes them vital to survival strategies in times of drought. No wonder they are precious family friends: every one has a name and a history. But could they do better and provide more milk and more kids for sale? One village has discovered that, with a little foraging by humans, they could.

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Defining the problem

Rajasthan extends deep into the Thar Desert. Here the summer monsoon rains are brief and the dry season can last ten months. In the final months before the rains come, in May and June, temperatures soar above 40 degrees C, water is short and the vegetation has mostly shrivelled. Even the goats, which can live on the most meagre vegetation, find it hard to survive. They suffer diseases; their milk diminishes; females often fail to become pregnant during the breeding season, which coincides with the driest months.

In the village of Patiyokakheda, in Bhilwara district, one in five females did not produce kids during the breeding season in 1997. Dapu, a tribal woman, said her goats died after succumbing to diarrhoea. Her livelihood suffered badly as her flock declined, milk for her children was short and she had no kids for sale in the autumn.

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Taking action

Researchers from the BAIF Foundation working with goat herders in the villages of Bhilwara began to look for ways to keep the animals healthy through the dry months of April, May and June. The poor herders could not afford to buy feed, so the researchers and villagers together settled on a new use for an alien tree introduced here by a British colonial forester in 1876.

The villagers of Rajasthan knew the tree, Prosopis juliflora - known locally as `English tree' - as a pernicious thorny weed that they ripped up when it invaded their fields. But dangling from the tree's branches are giant pods 15-25 centimetres long, that are packed with protein and sugar. In its native Central America, these pods are widely used for animal fodder. So the researchers suggested that the villagers pick the pods in the spring and store them for feeding to hungry kidless female goats in May and June, in the hope that they would become pregnant.

The villagers tested the idea during 1998 and 1999, in a project led by the NRI's Czech Conroy. The result was fatter, healthier female goats that produced almost 30% more kids. A typical goat keeper with 10 breeding females got three extra kids, worth 900 rupees at market in October. That meant more cash from sales of the young kids. "I had eight kids from my goats this year," said a delighted Dapu.

The villagers continued to collect the pods after the research project ended. Not only that; they conducted their own informal innovation -- feeding the pods to both lactating females and young goats. The result, says Czech, was more milk for village children and a healthier herd.

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The cast

"I had eight kids from my goats this year" -- Dapu, goat keeper from Patiyokakheda village

• Dr NS Sharma, BAIF's Bhilwara project co-ordinator for the Bharatiya Agro-Industries Foundation (BAIF), an agricultural science NGO based in Pune.
• Czech Conroy, NRI

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Global Relevance

Goats have a bad reputation for doing environmental damage round the world. They are, literally, regarded as scapegoats for poor environments. This is unfair, says Conroy. They live on bad lands because they can survive them better than cows or buffaloes. Goats follow environmental degradation, rather than causing it.

But they are a vital resource for many poor villagers, who must also often suffer being shunted onto the poorest land. Far from shunning such people and their animals, says Conroy, there is a need to help them do better in their hostile environments.

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Thinking points

• Goats are not environmental pariahs, and they are often vital to the livelihoods of the poorest people.
• Don't disregard "weeds" -- even weeds from foreign lands. They could be a new resource rather than a menace.
• Farmers are often as good at innovation as researchers. Collaboration in the village often works best.

Research into new feed for goats was funded by the UK Department for International Development Livestock Research Programme

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In the Field is a collaboration between the BBC World Service and the Natural Resources Institute of the University of Greenwich, supported by the Rural Livelihoods Department of the UK Government Department for International Development (DFID)