Improving meat & milk

The ranchers of Piura’s Andes joined a programme that looked for getting better life conditions.

 

 

By Nelson Peñaherrera Castillo

 

 

    

    SIMIRÍS, Peru – Several years ago, Hildebrando Pedemonte, an old rancher got aboard a project to improve cattle. No one assured him it would be successful but he was aware about risking to get the first resultsof his investment, a couple of years later. “I plan to select cows for milk & meat,” he said. “That is the hope of someone.”

 

 

Mr Pedemonte and his son started that experience with about half-a-dozen ranchers of the town. The project consisted in improving cattle through the introduction of resistant species to drought, that affects periodically the Andes of Piura, and the rusticity of pastures in the zone, those combined native and foreign species purposed to promote its permanence despite the most adverse weather conditions.

 

 

Brown Swiss samples were selected, brought from Amazonas Region (Peruvian Central-Northern), those are simpler to manage and reproduce. In association with the Municipality of Santo Domingo Districtt, they inseminated mother cows artificially for obtaining the first calves generation that provided milk and meat.

 

 

The municipality’s specialists explained that obtaining genetically improved breedings, the quality of both products improves each new generation. “In average, the winters must produce about 12 liters of milk,” calculated Orlando Peña, an insemination technician working with that institution and who advised and supervised the ranchers of Simirís.

 

 

Mr Pedemonte became to have an almost-1-year-old young cow that grew with natural pastures at the slopes of the town. If the vision of ranchers and officials did not faint, their effort was going to be worthy a couple of years later.

 

 

    Granting control

The Andes of Piura –like almost the Peru’s mountain range—have relatively high poverty levels. However, it is also a zone where there is no coherent policy to take advantage of all natural resources, which adequately exploited and managed may improve the life conditions of farmers, that is the most numerous population group .

 

 

Some local economic activities have been promoted to create jobs, but its coverage has been limited. The combined vision of technicians and some authorities created much fairest and more promising conditions, like it happened in Santo Domingo with the Cattle Development Programme (Prodega as its acronyme in Spanish).

 

 

Prodega was implemented in June 2003 by the Regional Government of Piura, supported by the Peru-France Countervalue Fund, and originally promoted by the Regional Programme of Sustainable Development (PRDS as its acronyme in Spanish) through sensibilization sessions. It started in 2004 by acquiring semen Banks because of the support of the Municipalities of Lalaquiz (Huancabamba), San Juan de Bigote, Morropón, Santa Catalina de Mossa, Santo Domingo, and Chalaco Districts (Morropón). The goal was to benefit around 1000 families.

 

 

Wílmer Quiroga, a zootechnician engineer associated to PRDS, held that unlike other projects, here the municipality and the ranchers were in charge of the initiative to work. Based on a training built by the own grantees, who were going to implement the programme at their own lands were progressively identified, how and where to buy their supplies, and what other activities around the meat & milk management could be perform.

 

 

For example in Simirís, the community was provided with a small milk transformation plant that was projected to operate since January 2006 by offering fresh milk, then cheese, to sell the local programmes of food complementation addressed to boys and girls in school age. The gains was going to be re-invested into the mode for the ranchers to turn owners of their own business. “The plant is an alternative to open the milk to another market,” Quiroga said.

 

 

    Organization

In the long-term, Prodega also looked for the ranchers to organize around of every municipality for improving their work strategies. Only in Santo Domingo, one of the towns where the programme developed successfully, they achieved to join around 500 growers for deciding whom should benefit, how the cattle should be acquire, as well as what type of pasture should be implemented in the zone.

 

 

At its time, this district association responded to small associations created in every town where the cattle was improved. Finally, according to the management that every grantee gave to his cattle, gains should be seen. For example, Fidel Rojas García, a ranchers who had his winter next to Santo Domingo Town, expected to overcome 20 liters of milk per day that one of his cows provided.

 

 

The perspective also motivated the PRDS  to trry another type of cattle, like the hairy sheeps, those basically give meat, which experiences were performed at the towns of Piedra del Toro and Carracuca, both at the mountain dry forest of Morropón. “what we expect is to progress, having many sheeps, having more incomes, we’re going to sell them and we’re going to eat them,” promised Rebeca Holguín Correa, a Piedra del Toro-based grantee.

 

 

    A good diagnosis

The anthrax and the enteretoxemia are common diseases of the cattle at La Gallega Valley, Morropón Province. When the animals were infected, the rancher had no more choice than tripping to Morropón City, santo Domingo, or even Chulucanas, the province’s capital city, for having medicine and spending one or two days.

 

 

The intervention allowed that some communities to have a specialized first-aid kit where the same medicines were offered but cheaper than commercial services. Hitler Barreto Córdova assumed the first-aid kit at the town of Pambarumbe and because of his father’s experience selling animal medicine, he developed criteria to diagnose little illnesses of the cattle, and providing the right remedy.

 

 

Barreto promoted a vaccination campaign in his town which was attended by ranchers of the zone and the surrounding towns. The vaccines were certified by the Peruvian sanitarian authorities, and like every medicine, it was looked for being quality. “July, January, February – when the weather changes, there is more demand,” the young commented.

 

 

Like the milk transformation modes, the first-aid kits were acquired by the promoters of Prodega purposed to the grantees, later, were buying through a rotative fund fo    r themselves, and ending to manage them.

 

 

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