THE ANIMAL HEALTH IMPROVEMENT TRAINING PROGRAMME

In 1978, in response to the requests for animal healthcare training for farmers, a UMN veterinarian who was running the farm at Gandaki Boarding School designed two experimental training courses. The first was a short (three-day) course held for farmers in different villages close to Tansen in Palpa. This proved to be largely unsuccessful as the fanners were unwilling to allow the trainers or trainees to handle their animals. The need to organize practical hands-on training resulted in a two-week course for project staff held on the GBS farm, Lamachaur, in Pokhara District. The farm was found to be an ideal setting; not only did it have its own animals, but the animals of neighbouring farmers were being brought to the farm for treatment. The Animal Health Improvement Project was born of the success of this trial course.

In mid 1981, the Rural Development Centre (RDC) of UMN was established as a consultancy service to provide technical expertise to UMN community development projects in Lalitpur, Palpa and Gorkha in animal husbandry and health, forestry, water supplies and horticulture. Once established, the RDC took over the GBS farm as part of its operations. The AHITP forms part of RDC (see Fig. 3) providing training rather than consultancy expertise in the areas of animal husbandry and health. Since 1987, RDC's three other programmes, Forestry (Trees), Drinking Water Systems (WSSTP) and Horticulture and Agronomy (HATSP), have evolved into training rather than consultancy services.

The farm and veterinary clinic

The farm, covering just over three hectares, is primarily a livestock farm with 40 per cent of the land used for fodder and fruit trees, 35 per cent for fodder grass and fodder grain crops, and 25 per cent for buildings and pathways. Most of the fodder produced is for the farm's own livestock, which includes seventeen breeding goats and their offspring, five male goats, seven breeding rabbits and offspring, one milking buffalo and calf, two oxen, two fattening pigs and about twenty chickens. The buildings consist of offices, animal buildings, a classroom and two dormitories for the male and female trainees, a kitchen, and the clinic.

Although an expensive operation, the farm serves a number of functions. As a training centre for VAHWs it is able to demonstrate housing, feeding and general animal care techniques with healthy animals on the farm itself and the farm animal health clinic can provide cases to be used for teaching purposes and for practical treatment experience. Small-scale livestock trials (e.g. the monitoring of productivity of livestock) are conducted, thus providing some research background to support choices in course content.

The farm's fodder production, including short term crops, maize and oats, fodder trees and grass and the preservation of excess fodder such as silage and hay, the stall feeding of animals, and the results of a comprehensive preventative treatment of livestock against parasites are all examples of the farm's activities. Other small-scale trials have included, live fencing, cropping under trees, grass yields, green manuring, silage making, hay making, and a goat cross-breeding trial which monitors the growth rates of offspring.

Local farmers have been bringing animals to the farm for treatment for over twenty years, but the veterinary clinic was only officially established at AHIP's commencement in 1981. Animals brought to the centre are treated for the cost of the medicines used plus 25 per cent to cover administrative costs and losses. While the clinic staff will attend animals at home for a small fee, farmers are encouraged to bring animals to the farm, when possible, so that clinical material is available for trainees during the courses. The clinic keeps records in a day book of all the animals treated. From these records, it appears that the range of cases seen at the clinic (listed in Appendix 1) closely matches those cases seen by VAHWs after training, making it a particularly useful teaching resource.

The clinic, initially run by the expatriate veterinary staff, who trained local assistants, is now run by one full-time and one part-time clinician. While neither clinician is a veterinarian both have had extensive VAHW training.

In addition to the farm and clinic staff, AHITP in 1991 employed five people to organize, develop and run the training courses. They include two expatriates, a veterinarian and an animal husbandry specialist, and three Nepali livestock trainers two of whom have agricultural degrees, and one a recently qualified Junior Technical Assistant. Of the five, two – the veterinarian and the JTA – are women.

The training course – selection and content

AHITP offers two village animal health worker courses. The first is a beginners' course to train selected farmers to become VAHWs in their communities, and the second is a refresher course for actively working VAHWs to review the material of the first course and expand and improve their treatment skills and animal husbandry practices. Usually the trainees will return for the second course one to two years after the first, occasionally later.

All trainees are sponsored by an organization involved in community development work in their area. The sponsor agrees not only to pay the fee for the training but also to provide on-going support for the trainee in the field after he/she returns. Some sponsors are community health and development programmes of the United Mission to Nepal and some are government programmes, but most are other private NGOs (non-government organizations usually with ties to international development agencies such as CARE, Save the Children, Lutheran World Service, World Neighbors, Action Aid, International Nepal Fellowship).

AHITP advises the sponsors on selection criteria based on its experience of successes and failures. AHITP recommends that candidates be selected on five criteria. First, they should be experienced farmers who have not only raised animals before coming to the course, but also own the animals so that when they return they can implement disease prevention programmes that serve as a demonstration to their neighbours. Secondly, candidates should be at least twenty-five years of age. The age criterion was suggested not only in line with the need for experienced farmers but also because many young people now leave their villages to go to cities for jobs or more education. AHITP's goal is to train someone committed to staying in his/her village and providing a long term service. Marriage can also be an important stabilizing factor.

The third related criterion is that any candidate should not have completed the tenth grade (school-leaving certificate level)....