Livestock and Market Development Programme

This programme is designed to scale up the IFAD/World Bank-cofinanced Agricultural Investments and Services Project, and it adopts that project's successful approaches to pasture management and veterinary services. The programme objective is to generate livestock productivity gains in Issyk-Kul and Naryn Oblasts, reflected in improved and equitable returns to livestock farmers.

Pasture Users' Unions and their executive bodies, known as Pasture Committees, form the core of programme's interventions. Private community veterinarians are also key resources at the community level to facilitate improvements in animal health and productivity.

Components of the programme include:

• Community-based pasture management through a participatory planning approach focusing on pasture and livestock development
• Livestock health and production services through support to private veterinary practitioners, and to the national health programme to combat major livestock diseases
• Market and value-chain initiatives to raise the return achieved by livestock farmers from their dairy animals.

The Agricultural Projects Implementation Unit of the Ministry of Agriculture and Melioration is responsible for the overall management of the programme.

Source: IFAD