A goat project at Kopakama

The farming community in the region faces many challenges, such as low agricultural productivity, leading to low household incomes and food insecurity. In the region, livestock is an important part of agriculture. Rearing goats and cows provides meat, milk, leather, and fertilizers for crop production, which is mostly used for organic farming including growing coffee beans. 

Taylors have been working with Kopakama since 2016, when we supported the construction of a wastewater digester unit within the washing station in Nyagatare — ensuring that it met the water quality standards needed to maintain their Rainforest Alliance Certification.

In 2022, Taylors of Harrogate partnered up with Kopakama Cooperative to help tackle some of the challenges faced in the farming communities with a new project in which 558 goats were provided to the smallholder farms. The aim of the project is to provide one goat to each family, beginning with the most vulnerable families who own their own land which can be used to grow grass and feed the goats. After 6 months, the goats will produce kids and the first-born female kid from each goat will be gifted to another beneficiary household to ensure the project’s sustainability. This process will continue until all the beneficiaries have received a goat, which we hope will take about 18 months.

Kopakama, along with The Rwanda Agriculture and Animal Husbandry Board, will also provide training in animal husbandry management practices, nutrition, breeding, housing, and disease control to ensure the goats are healthy and the farming is productive. Our aim is to facilitate goat keeping to help reduce poverty, improve livelihoods and increase agricultural productivity.

Over the next few years, our goal is to see all the Kopakama beneficiaries receive a goat, which will hopefully lead to improved living conditions due to increased income, and health benefits for the whole household due to increased milk consumption. We would also love to see improved agricultural productivity through the use of organic manure, from the goats, to improve soil quality and reduce reliance on chemical inputs, which would contribute to Kopakama’s efforts to improve their environmental footprint. We will be measuring the impact of this over the next few years.

What comes next after goats? We have continued to support the region by providing landslide emergency relief. Earlier this year, heavy rainfall in the Rutsiro District caused flash flooding and landslides. Over 130 people lost their lives in the aftermath of the disaster, with homes, roads and bridges also being destroyed. Our aim was to improve the social and economic conditions of the farming community following the disaster through the distribution of food and hygienic material in order to prevent food insecurity and hygiene disease among the Kopakama workers and their families.