The impact of dairy goat development technologies in Busano sub county, Mbale district.

Abstract

Goats are deeply embedded in almost every African culture and are friends to the rural people of Sub-Saharan Africa. They provide socio economic services and products such as milk and meat there by meeting nutritional needs of the rapidly increasing rural human populations. This is why the goat is ret erred to as the poor man's cow. The government of Uganda identified goat-keeping as one of the strategies important in reducing poverty to a level below 28% by 2015. In Mbale; goat production represents an important food animal industry segment with goat's, milk-viably contributing in the challenge to prevent Mother- To-Child Transmission of HIV. FARM, Africa introduced dairy goats to alleviate poor nutrition, bad health and address the low income status of the beneficiaries. The introduction of such novel technologies may bring about benefits and costs to the recipient communities which, must be independently evaluated to give credit to any claims by the, implementing agencies. This study was, therefore, designed to, evaluate the Impact of the new dairy goat development technology in Susana sub-county. The-specific objectives were to identify the types of dairy goats introduced and the social and economic benefits brought about. by the dairy goat technology. The data collected was analysed using the Statistical Package for Social Scientists (SPSS version 16.0) and results presented in pie-charts and frequency tables. The study revealed that fanners, of Busano sub-county kept crosses of Toggenburg and Small East African goats for producing food for home consumption and generating income that was being spent to address social needs which included meeting their health and education requirements it is-therefore recommended that dairy goat technology is spread to more regions of Uganda with favourable climate; bio-repositories are created to preserve the genetic material of indigenous goats and; selection of future beneficiaries ensures gender equity.