Opit Farm - African Boer Goat Breeding

Gulu Region: Hope 2 One Life (H2O) and Community Foundation for Development (CFD)

Opit Farm and Boer Goat Breeding Project.
- A partnership with the Little Sisters of Mary Immaculate of Gulu.  Sr Zhiporro is a trained agriculturist and is getting her masters degree with a lot of training in animal husbandry as well.  Her Masters project is on raising IMO pigs using bio degradable substances for the feces and food. The pigs are contained and do not roam free, do not smell and grow very well!  They are in the same compound with our goats. Fenced 10 acre area allows the goats to graze protected from the range, outside illness danger and theft. The goat breeding project is an income generating project to help sustain Emmanuel Clinic. Our 3 year MOU with Emmanuel clinic for staff support is up now - we will extend another quarter then turn it over to Family Empowerment Uganda. The goat project started with 20 female local goats and 2 male full bred Boer goats. We have 15 babies born - 13 female and 2 male. 2 others died and the other 3 are pregnant. The 13 females will be cross bred with the male boar goats and then their offspring will be the cross that will survive well in this harsh environment and also provide bigger meatier goats. The males will be castrated and sold. We are looking at some income generation potential in 8-10 months. The project is a bit over budget as the building of the fence and goat house etc with paying workers took a year to accomplish in this hard climate - all hand done. She also added another pig keeper so there are 3 tending goats cows and pigs. This has now become a Reginal center visited by many people interested in these projects. We hope to replicate the pig project as well and toured another facility that had even bigger structures and more pigs in Gulu.  This land was a complete overgrown bush and sat idle for many years in this war torn area. We started with drilling a borehole for water.  Sr is requesting an extension of the fence to the farm land on the other side of the borehole to extend farming and fodder feed without the local neighboring animals getting into it. She already has a super bucket drip irrigation kit and was trained in farming gods way. Others will be trained as well.  Each project relays their successes and challenges and struggles. We give feedback with team visits. Mentoring and financial accountability is managed through CFD.  We have high hope for this project. It is a partial gift of many people at home who donated during the adopt a goat for Emmanuel clinic sustainability campaign (approx $9000) and partial loan ($ 4,000 interest free) to teach budgets and business planning with sustainable income generation.  It is a joint venture 45/55 split.  We are so hopeful for this project. This well also has great solar power capabilities to further farming and drip irrigation similar to the farm. Tom's list is growing!  Thank you to all at home who donated for this project!  We will be looking for further funding. We are ESP grateful to our H20 board member John John Standish for his wise counsel and business plan oversight which helped this project get off the paper and on the ground in Opit!  We are grateful and praying for the success of this project, also unique in this area!

- note the contrast between the dusty dry windy blown dry season vs some photos from my visit in Sept. There will be two more months of dry season. Many Jerry cans of water need to be hauled each day for the animals from the well. Thank God for the well.  Pray for rain!