VWB USAID Farmer-To-Farmer Special Program Support Project

VWB USAID Farmer-to-Farmer Special Program Support Project

Agreement # AID-OAA-A-13-00053

Work Plan for October 1, 2015-September 30, 2016

Overview: Veterinarians Without Borders is pleased to continue implementing the Farmer-to-Farmer program under the Special Program Support Project (SPSP PDP). We proposed to execute a minimum of 24 assignments in Ethiopia and 24 assignments in Uganda in FY14-18. In fiscal year 2016 we estimate fielding17 in Uganda and 8 in Ethiopia or 25 total.

Headquarters Operations: The VWB Headquarters staffs, in cooperation with VEGA, areresponsible for managing both country programs, approval of project strategies and recruiting and supporting the Farmer-to-Farmer volunteers. VWB Headquarters program staff will continue the following tasks in FY15-16:

Develop program management, monitoring and evaluation systems including Host Profiles and Project Strategies. We will write Volunteer Scopes of Work based on the template provided by VEGA. VWB’s program management system will report on the program impact indicators from the SPSP indicator table.
Recruit and support volunteer assignments.
Inform VWB members and others about the Farmer-to-Farmer program and upcoming volunteer projects.
Carry out all tasks related to closing out the project at the end of FY16.

Proposed Volunteer Activities:

We plan to field at least 25 volunteers to Uganda and Ethiopia in FY16 as follows:

Estimated Volunteer Projects in FY16
Quarter 4 / Quarter 1 / Quarter 2 / Quarter 3 / Total
Oct-Dec / Jan-Mar / Apr-Jun / Jul-Sep
2015 / 2016 / 2016 / 2016
Uganda / 1 / 3 / 3 / 10 / 17
Ethiopia / 2 / 0 / 3 / 3 / 8
Total / 3 / 3 / 6 / 13 / 25

In Uganda, VWB plans to execute volunteer projects in the following disciplines:

Disease recognition training and reporting for producers (x3)
Transboundary disease sampling and necropsy techniques (x3)
Small livestock husbandry (x2)
Food Safety training (milk, meat, eggs) producer to processor (x3)
Ministry of Agriculture training in OIE compliance for transboundary disease control (3)

In Ethiopia, we plan to execute volunteer projects in the following disciplines:

Disease recognition training and reporting for producers (x2)
Transboundary disease sampling and necropsy techniques (x2)
Small livestock husbandry (x1)
Food Safety training (milk, meat, eggs) producer to processor (x1)
Ministry of Agriculture training in OIE compliance for transboundary disease control (2)

The order to do projects in and identify which projects each host organization will participate in will be determined by the field staff and volunteer availability. We anticipate that the host organizations will participate in a carefully thought out program of assistance consisting of multiple volunteer projects. This program of assistance will be referred to as a Project Strategy.

As we have noted above, this list is not intended to be the last word on our project plans. We have already experienced host organizations request for assistance in project categories that are not on this list at some point during the project and we have been able to accommodate some of that work by including it in existing work plans. The headquarters management team will encourage the field staff to regard this list as a guideline, and to pursue targets of opportunity as they present themselves.

FY13 Country Specific Work Plans:

Uganda

Context: Uganda’s 2013 Global Hunger Index is classified as “serious” by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).[1] Food insecurity in Uganda affects up to 20% of the population. At the same time, the country has low levels of agricultural productivity compared to other countries in the region. Combine low agricultural productivity with an annual population that is growing by 3.2% per year and it is clear that Uganda’s current production cannot keep pace with increasing local demand.

Value chains being targeted:Livestock: Small and medium holder livestock raising is critically important to “the bottom billion’s” resilience and food security. Cattle, sheep, goats and chickens, form an integral part of traditional crop-livestock production systems throughout much of Sub-Saharan Africa and East African pastoralists in particular. This economic safety net for households, especially for women and children, is often put at risk because of trade embargos put in place as a consequence of a lack of reporting and control of transboundary diseases in livestock. The World Trade Organizations rules for livestock trade are embodied in their Sanitary and Phytosanitary rules and monitored by the World Organization for Animal Health PVS pathway for disease control compliance. When these reportable diseases cross borders or continents, they can have devastating consequences to populations of animals that are susceptible and unexposed to these organisms, with resulting trade closure that can reduce the value of livestock to half and less of their real value. Livestock rearing has remained primarily small in scope, particularly small ruminants, but this subsistence scope is slowly changing. These animals represent both a significant food source for the poor and a consistent annual income stream. To enhance the development of this evolving business sector, there are ample opportunities for significant volunteer technical assistance in the areas of small livestock care, disease recognition, processing and marketing to positively affect food security and food safety.

Opportunities: Livestock health is essential for both food security and economic growth, and constitutes a potential path out of poverty for much of the world. Many livestock diseases are transmissible to humans (zoonotic), and improved recognition and control of these diseases could markedly enhance human health, through decreasing disease transmission and improving human nutrition. Additionally, improved health of draft animals used for tilling of croplands and haulage of produce further stabilizes food sources for both human and livestock populations.

Developing countries often have difficulty maintaining and improving animal health, primarily because insufficient surveillance limits the ability to discern the extent and location of diseases and their sources, making it impossible to efficiently invest scarce resources for control. Improving animal health through increasing awareness of disease recognition by field personnel (also known as passive surveillance) is the core of our project, focusing on two countries with identified needs in this area – Uganda and Ethiopia.

Our project fills a valuable niche in a large new program being implemented by the African Union – Interafrican Bureau for Animal Resources (AU-IBAR). The Standard Methods and Procedures in Animal Health (SMP-AH) program, developed and initiated by the AU-IBAR through funding from USAID, aims to increase awareness of key diseases at all levels of livestock production. The goal of the SMP-AH is to establish both national and regional disease control programs to create a coordinated approach for reporting and controlling diseases for countries which depend on livestock health for their economic well-being. The impetus for this program began almost 15 years ago, when an outbreak of Rift Valley fever, a severe disease of ruminants, which is also transmissible to humans (zoonotic), and which surfaces periodically in East Africa, was inadvertently transported to the Arabian Peninsula. The Arabian Peninsula then instituted extensive trade embargoes of animals, creating far-reaching economic hardship for many East African nations. The Arabian Peninsula maintained the embargo for almost a decade, primarily because the East African nations were not able to demonstrate required surveillance to comply with the World Organization for Animal Health standards and prove freedom from disease.

Constraints: Enhancing surveillance, especially passive surveillance, is centered on reporting spontaneous disease from the field level up to the government level. This is in contrast to the more frequently utilized approach of “active” surveillance, which is top-down, and targeted to merely one or two specific diseases. The OIE has identified passive surveillance as an essential aspect of a solid National Veterinary Authority, in order to increase the viability of the country’s agriculture on the global market. As the OIE is the body which sets standards for the Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) Agreement of the World Trade Organization, complying with these OIE standards leverages ability to trade, and thereby stabilizes both individual livelihoods and national economies.

The aim of this project is to improve the human resource capacity at the field level with those personnel closest to the animals. We will create increased awareness among them of key diseases, and will establish a sustainable system for passive surveillance. There will be multiple positive impacts as a result of supporting and sustaining passive surveillance. First, by identifying problems in the field, action can be taken to initiate immediate disease diagnosis and control before the disease becomes a widely spread outbreak. As a result, animal health and production benefits, and nutritional status of smallholders improves, with a net effect of improving economics all along the value chain. Second, effective passive surveillance will demonstrate to trading partners that both live animals and livestock commodity products are reliable, thus increasing animal product value for the national economy. A third very significant impact will be reduction in human disease due to recognition and control of those livestock pathogens transmissible to humans (zoonotic diseases).

The largest anticipated constraints we envision are 1) limited abilities of small holders with limited resources to connect to the veterinary community and initiate a response when an outbreak is recognized, 2) for the local veterinary community to respond to the producers report and 3) for the national government to respond, transport materials in a stable manner allowing preservation of sample integrity (cold chain and timeliness) and have resources at the national laboratory to diagnose the panoply of diseases which exist.

Description of F2F Project and Areas in Which Volunteers Will Be Used: F2F Volunteers will work with groups of small livestock herders, smallholders, traders, transporters and butchers to learn to identify diseases of highest consequence and report them to District authorities:

Training farmers and others who handle livestock along the value chain (veterinarians, herders, smallholders, traders, transporters and butchers) using low literacy materials that are graphic dense, to recognize suspected transboundary diseases;
Training veterinarians in necropsy and sample handling techniques required for improving disease diagnostics and organism recovery or identification;
Training in appropriate record keeping, sample collection, processing, evaluation, and reporting;
Training in improved disease control and containment of infected individuals and herds;
Training processors in improved disease recognition and reporting

Partners: We anticipate working closely with other USAID horticulture implementers (there are no wholly Ugandan Livestock projects currently), Catholic Relief Services, the East Africa Dairy Development Program and their consortium partners in Heifer International, African Breeder Services, ILRI, as well as other livestock focus groups at CIAT, IFPRI, International Institute of Rural Reconstruction, Mercy Corps, etc.

Host Institutions:The principle Host Institution is the Ugandan Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Industries, and Fisheries with the focus at the District veterinary offices. F2F Volunteers will be placed with groups of farmers, traders, marketers, slaughterhouse personnel and veterinarians, who are active in production, processing and sale of livestock. We have been very fortunate to work with the National Animal Disease Diagnostic and Epidemiology Center as well as the National Agricultural Research Organization to enhance disease diagnostics and reporting.

Ethiopia

Context: Ethiopia’s 2013 Global Hunger Index is classified as “alarming” by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).[2]Ethiopia’s small-scale producers face severe difficulties attaining food security. Cyclical drought, regional low yields for many commodities and thin margins after debt repayments combine with volatile commodity prices and high input costs to create a vicious cycle for Ethiopia’s farmers. Caught in this cycle, many small-scale producers never make enough money to make the productivity enhancing investments in their farms that might lead to higher incomes and a better standard of living. This includes disease prevention practices such as vaccination or treatment that could double livestock offtake annually.

Value Chains being targeted: Livestock: Small and medium holder livestock rearing is critically important to “the bottom billion’s” resilience and food security. Cattle, sheep, goats and chickens, form an integral part of traditional crop-livestock production systems throughout much of Sub-Saharan Africa and East African pastoralists in particular. This economic safety net for households, especially for women and children, is often put a risk because of trade embargos put in place as a consequence of a lack of reporting and control of transboundary diseases in livestock. The World Trade Organizations rules for livestock trade are embodied in their Sanitary and Phytosanitary rules and monitored by the World Organization for Animal Health PVS pathway for disease control compliance. When these reportable diseases cross borders or continents, they can have devastating consequences to populations of animals that are susceptible and unexposed to these organisms with resulting trade closure that can reduce the value of livestock to half and less of their real value. Livestock rearing has remained primarily small in scope, particularly small ruminants, but this subsistence scope is slowly changing. These animals represent both a significant food source for the poor and a consistent annual income stream. To enhance the development of this evolving business sector, there are ample opportunities for significant volunteer technical assistance in the area of small livestock care, disease recognition, processing and marketing to positively affect food security and food safety.

Constraints:Enhancing surveillance, especially passive surveillance, is centered on reporting spontaneous disease from the field level up to the government level. This is in contrast to the more frequently utilized approach of “active” surveillance, which is top-down, and targeted to merely one or two specific diseases. The OIE has identified passive surveillance as an essential aspect of a solid National Veterinary Authority, in order to increase the viability of the country’s agriculture on the global market. As the OIE is the body which sets standards for the Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) Agreement of the World Trade Organization, complying with these OIE standards leverages ability to trade, and thereby stabilizes both individual livelihoods and national economies.