For Grace Dinkwanyane, her community’s cows are miracles. They have become the gift of self-sustainability, she says, smiling at her own miracle, a Jersey cow named Beest. Dinkwanyane, a 45-year-old farmer from Groblersdal, says the cows owned by her and nine other women in her community have given them pride and confidence, as well as providing food for their families.
“We are sustaining ourselves because of these cows,” she says.
The women, known as the Here-ford Women Farmers Cooperative, received cows from an NGO that helps rural developing farmers. Ten women in the community each received a cow from Heifer International-South Africa, a community development organisation, and South African Breweries.
Heifer is involved with a number of animal husbandry development projects among the poorest of the poor in South Africa. It donates animals such as cows, poultry and goats and trains communities to keep these animals by using the resources around them. Heifer donates the animals to individual families, who are then responsible for their upkeep.
The Hereford women are already involved in vegetable production, but needed an additional income for when they could not harvest their crops. Dinkwanyane, who runs her business without any help from men, says that after deducting her expenses, she earns R500 a month through the sale of milk. She harvests 14 litres of milk a day and uses some of it for home consumption. The excess is sold for a profit, which she ploughs back into her fledgling farm business. The women received their heifers in February last year, and after 18 months they have a total of 14 animals.
The cows have produced six calves, of which the females were passed on to other members of the community and two of the cows unfortunately died from tick-borne diseases. .
“The Hereford Women Farmers Cooperative is an ideal example of a community working together in agriculture in order to improve their livelihoods,” says Gavin MacGregor, director of support services at Heifer International-South Africa.
He explains that passing on the first-born female cow is the cornerstone of his company’s operation. In this way, families become accountable to one another and the benefits are spread throughout the community.
“A big challenge for NGOs is to get communities to take ownership of the projects. To ensure success, they have to be accountable and take responsibility for the resources they receive to make a project work and create true self-sustainability,” says MacGregor.
He says NGOs often have to police a project to ensure that it succeeds, but with Heifer International’s approach, the community members hold each other accountable, doing away with the “policing role”.
“When there is no community ownership and accountability system, you turn up for a visit for the day and the community will ensure they have done up the project to look good for the ‘policemen’ [NGO/donor]. But after you leave, everyone in the community is relieved and relaxes until the next visit.” He says that with Heifer’s model the family that is set to receive the next female animal encourages and helps the family who received the original cow, because they are the ultimate beneficiaries.
Before delivering the cows, Heifer trained the women in dairy management, fodder establishment and animal management as well as shelter construction. The women are required to build the animals shelters and feed them from the fodder they have grown, using their own money and resources.
Nono Nkgaddima, chairperson of the group, says she feeds her Friesland cow, Bontrok, by using the excess material from her vegetable crops. In return Bontrok supplies her vegetable crops with excellent organic manure.
She jokes that she got Bontrok “by playing the lotto”. In order to distribute the 10 cows among the members, each cow’s ear tag number was written on a bottle top and placed in a hat. Every member had a chance to draw a number and Nkgaddima drew Bontrok. The system was also used to determine who is next in line to receive the gift of a calf.
“No one could argue that their cow was too ugly or too thin because the system was fair,” Nkgaddima said. “It was either take it or leave it.”
The project is set to expand to 33 families as calves are passed on to new owners.