An ongoing animal husbandry project established in conjunction with the India, Brazil, South Africa (IBSA) Fund has yielded several successes.

Dr. Daryl Best, veterinarian and animal husbandry officer in the Ministry of Agriculture said the IBSA project set several targets including improving the bloodlines of small ruminants, introducing forage banks, conducting farmer field schools, and training farmers in animal husbandry practices.

“What we’ve tried to do through the IBSA fund is implement different cohorts,” Dr. Best said. “Our first was to bring in new bloodlines of both sheep and goats to the island to help improve our bloodlines and improve the quality of animals that we can make available to the farmers. That has been ongoing for at least a year or two now and we are getting the offspring out to the farmers and the farmers are getting good results from the offspring, and they can now avail these animals to the general public by means of meat and also animals to other farmers.”

To aid the upkeep of the animals at minimal costs, forages were introduced.

“The ministry introduced forage banks. Four different species of high protein forages—the mulberry, the moringa, tithonia and trichanthera—were distributed to about 50 farmers islandwide. These forages will actually help them feed the animals at a cheaper cost. They are very good forages for our small ruminants. They thrive on them.”

The IBSA grant also provided for educational opportunities for both farmers and technical agriculture officers.

“In Saint Lucia we’ve accomplished thus far three farmer field schools, one on small ruminants, one on swine and the third on poultry,” Dr. Best said. “These workshops bring practical knowledge to the farmers not in a school setting, but actually in a practical setting. We go out to the farms, it’s very hands on, and we do a lot of practical work; and the farmers are learning a lot of new techniques, innovations and technologies to help increase production while lowering costs, which would make them even more profitable.”

He continued: “Another part of it is artificial insemination where we actually train farmers and technical staff in the procedures of artificial insemination. We’ve had our own officers go overseas to Jamaica via CARDI to learn these techniques, and we’ve held our own AI workshop in Saint Lucia in 2017, where we had our farmers witness how it is done. These are the kind of initiatives that we’ve been trying to push under the IBSA fund.”

Dr. Best said the workshops have been successful in educating farmers about new practices, and preparing them to implement similar procedures on their farms.

The IBSA project targets poverty and hunger alleviation by improving farming practices. It is implemented by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations in partnership with the Ministry of Agriculture.