| Activities |
The project included three relevant outputs: - Provision of seeds (short-cycle/drought tolerant crop production inputs) and cash+ packages. The purpose is to maximize and diversify farmers’ production in anticipation of a drought:
- Activity: vulnerable smallholder farmers will receive assorted seeds of improved locally-adapted drought tolerant crops. Staggered planting will be encouraged as a drought mitigation measure; the supported families will have prolonged access to sources of food, income as well as fodder from crop residues. The seed packages will not only be based on agroecology of the target locations but also tailored to farmers’ nutritional needs and traditional practices for the same targeted livelihood zones and will be made of preferred cereal seeds, pulse seeds and vegetable seeds. This will be coupled with tailored training on good agronomic practices (GAP), post-harvest handling and value addition. The trainings will ensure optimal yields, minimal crop losses and increased shelf-life of selected produced commodities. In addition, the beneficiary households will receive a set of farm tools (digging hoe, spade and machete) and unconditional cash transfers of USD 40 per household (about 90 percent of the Productive Safety Net Programme wage rate) to enable them meet immediate family needs hence mitigate the risk of resorting to negative coping strategies during the lean.
- Provision of Animal health campaign and treatment services. The purpose is to mitigate large-scale loss of livestock, related sources of food, nutrition and income, and avert related humanitarian need.
- Activities: the action will support the treatment and vaccination of animals. The livestock supportive emergency treatment package will comprise of an effective mix of services to prevent outbreaks of major transboundary animal diseases, treatment of endo- and ecto-parasites, respiratory infections, while giving animals a boost in vitamins. This will be complemented by FAO’s ongoing area-wide vaccination in some of the target regions to prevent the spread of transboundary livestock diseases, as livestock migrate (often long distances during droughts) and crowd around scarce pasture and water sources. While reducing the rate of disease spread and morbidity, the parasite treatment will maintain animals’ body condition, milk production and overall energy to move, feed and remain a viable asset when the drought is intensifying. Maintaining milk production for daily consumption, will especially be crucial for the nutrition of pastoral children.
- Provision of Livestock supplementary feed and cash+ packages. The purpose is to protect livestock and related following depletion of pastures and rangelands by drought.
- Activities: the action will also support provision of supplementary livestock feed and cash to vulnerable pastoral households and agro- pastoral households in the targeted drought affected regions. Priority will be given to northern and northeastern areas like Somali and Afar regions where the situation is likely to be worse following severe damages on pasture and rangelands by desert locusts. 18 300 Tropical Livestock Units (TLUs) of 9 200 households will be provided with Total Mixed Ration (TMR) while 66 700 TLUs of 33,300 households will be provided with Multi-Nutrient Blocks (MNBs). These will be enough to feed two core-breeding cattle per household for 90 days. Although pastoralist may have more than two core-breeding animals, the support will only focus on two core-breeding animals due to limited resources. It’s assumed that with this, the two animals can safely stay at home and produce milk for consumption by children throughout the lean season. In addition, a one-off cash transfers of USD 40 per household (about 90 percent of the Productive Safety Net Programme wage rate) will be provided to the supported households. The cash component will enable the households meet other immediate family needs. Moreover, these will be accompanied by training on utilization, nutritional value and benefits of supplementary feeds.
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