From research outputs to development outcomes—selected stories - Water Scarcity, Livelihoods and Food Security - page 188

The solution was a system of formal goat auctions on defined dates pro-
moted by an innovation platform of farmers, dealers, researchers and other
stakeholders. The auctions were held in sale yards, which provided scales and
pens for small animals. Producers saw prices increase from US$10 to
US$50-60 a head as buyers now had to bid for each lot and pay more for
quality. The change induced producers to improve management to improve
carcass quality, with innovations such as fencing, animal health and improved
feed. With improved management, mortality fell and is now about 10 percent,
and there are many fewer distress sales.
The demand for improved feed is ironic. For many years researchers had
promoted pastures as feed for goats in the dry season, but farmers had little
incentive to take up the technology. With farm income from goats increasing
from US$10 to about US$200 per year, farmers now have resources and
incentive to improve the feed for their animals in the dry season and seek
research support to implement pasture improvement.
The innovation platform to create the auction system was funded by
Germany, the EU and the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation.
The CPWF project Limpopo 3 worked with researchers to identify improved
dry-season fodders that the farmers now sought. The CPWF provided support
that hastened progress of an innovation platform that was already in place.
Citations relevant to this story are: van Rooyen and Homann-Kee Tui,
2008; van Rooyen and Homann-Kee Tui, 2009; van Rooyen, 2012.
Safeguarding livelihoods in the GaMampa wetlands in the Limpopo
River basin (PN30)
Long-term sustainable management and conservation requires that farmers
participate as co-managers of their resources. Working with people in the
community, researchers developed and applied a trade-off-based framework
for making decisions about allocations of wetland resources for specific uses,
including agriculture. They used WETSYS, a trade-off model, for assessing
the costs and benefits of different uses of wetlands in a modeling exercise in the
GaMampa wetland, South Africa (Morardet and Masiyandima, 2012). The
exercise helped people in the local community and other stakeholders better
understand the trade-offs involved in clearing reeds for preparing new areas
for cropping. The model estimated that the GaMampa wetland could
contribute US$210 per household per year to the livelihoods of the local
communities, a sevenfold increase in their current income.
Public officials were still involved with the community more than a year
after fieldwork ended. Engaging government officials responsible for natural
resource management helped ensure that local concerns are incorporated into
program management decisions. With support of the Landcare Unit of the
Limpopo Department of Agriculture, the community obtained financial
support from the United Nations Development Program to help them
continue to manage their wetland resources.
Citations relevant to this story are: Morardet et al., 2010; CPWF, 2012h.