Women's livestock groups and cooperatives can play a vital role in helping women to start and operate viable livestock enterprises.
An 1994 IFAD publication on women livestock managers points out that a group approach may be the only way for poor rural women to obtain enough resources to start up and profitably operate a livestock enterprise. Groups allow women to save and to share material, capital and labour.
The report bases its conclusions on case studies in a number of countries where women's livestock groups have been tried:
- Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and The Sudan (women's poultry groups);
- India (women's dairy groups);
- Kenya and Senegal (women's groups for sheep, goats and milk processing); and
- Nepal (women's groups for goat raising).
In Africa, women's livestock groups have existed in some countries for many years and can be quite numerous. In Kenya, a total of 16 000 women's groups were officially registered as early as 1984. Most were involved in some kind of livestock production for profit. Livestock groups can help women to share and save on inputs and on the time required for tasks such as herding, transport to market and marketing. Egg marketing provides a simple example. Because of the small scale of their poultry operations, poor women often have to wait several days before there are enough eggs to take to market. But by then the eggs may no longer be fresh. Poultry groups allow women to pool their eggs and take turns in marketing.
Women-only group livestock activities can also run into difficulties, however. The Kenya women's livestock groups found it difficult to procure feed because of high costs and shortages. Also, in some areas, women do not have grazing grounds and therefore have to depend on the goodwill of men to allow their animals to graze.
Nor is the group approach appropriate in all cases. The study cites the case of the Fulani in northern Nigeria. Here women have traditionally dominated dairy production and the marketing system, although men milk the animals. Fulani women have considerable milk-processing expertise. They can transform milk into at least six different products and are constantly experimenting with new ones. However, the Fulani women are used to working on an individual basis. Therefore, projects promoting milk cooperatives have not been successful. Forming livestock cooperatives among the Rendille transhumant women in Kenya has also failed. The cooperatives were foreign to their culture, and women did not see the need for them. In addition, when group initiatives were attempted, arguments and quarrels over leadership ensued.
Another problem encountered with women's cooperatives has been that men tend to take over leadership when the enterprise becomes profitable. This has been the experience in many countries, particularly with milk cooperatives.
The study recognizes that large-scale implementation of a group approach is usually difficult. Government institutions tend to have limited outreach capacity for setting up and training women's groups and cooperatives. Consequently, IFAD projects, like those of other donors, often turn to non-governmental organizations (NGOs) for such services. Yet, as the study points out, it is dangerous to consider NGOs as "a panacea for success".
Women's groups and cooperatives can often help poorer women to start market-oriented livestock enterprises. But groups and cooperatives do not work everywhere. They also take time and effort to set up. NGOs can be valuable partners in helping to establish and develop capacity. However, even NGOs need to be carefully selected and sometimes provided with upfront training. An NGO exit strategy, to allow women's organizations to develop self-reliance, is also important.
Adapted from
M. Niamir-Fuller, Women Livestock Managers in the Third World: Focus on Technical Issues Related to Gender Roles in Livestock Production, Staff Working Paper 18, Rome: IFAD, December 1994.
