Livestock Production Programme (LPP)

The LPP addresses problems documented in agricultural, livestock and environmental plans, in poverty reduction strategy papers and in high priority pro-poor livestock policy issues identified by national governments and regional associations in developing countries. In general, research themes focus on improvements in the livelihoods of discreet groups of resource-poor farmers through improving the survival, production and productivity of the livestock they keep.

The resource-poor livestock groups and associated research themes are:

• Small-holder milk producers (up to 2 dairy cows or buffaloes or 6 milking goats) in various agro-ecological and climatic zones. Research themes: appropriate rationing systems; conservation practices; milk processing and marketing; use of improved local breeds and exotics for milk; lifetime vs annual production indices.
  
• Crop-Livestock farmers (crop farmers who need/keep livestock for draught purposes and dung) in high potential and forest-agriculture production systems. Research themes: feeding draught animals for work; appropriate harnessing and yoking systems; appropriate primary and secondary cultivation implements; contribution of dung to soil fertility; tsetse control; animal welfare.
  
• Smallstock keepers (poor farmers who keep sheep, goats, pigs, poultry, rabbits, guinea pigs, bees for both subsistence and production reasons) under all agro-ecological and climatic conditions. Research themes: dry-season interventions; nutrition-disease interactions; coping with worm burdens; control of production diseases; indigenous approaches to feeding and disease; appropriate husbandry (feeding, housing, disease control) practices; products (meat, eggs, skins, dung) to market.
  
• Landless livestock keepers (in both urban and rural locations, particularly those who keep livestock to climb out of poverty; women) in all agro-ecological and climatic zones. Research themes: policy change and creation of enabling environments; gender issues; empowerment of the poor.
  
• Pastoralists (includes both transhumant groups and agro-pastoralists living in arid environments who keep sheep, goats, cattle, camels/camelids, donkeys as principal survival/production strategy).

Research themes: policy change and awareness raising; land use and tenure; empowerment; markets and marketing.

In addition, the LPP commissions activities in the dissemination, promotion and upscaling of research and is actively engaged in collaborating with other donors in the management of knowledge. The institutions it commissions to undertake research must have the capability and motivation to carry through pro-poor research to promotion and field implementation with the ultimate aim of contributing to achievement of the Millennium Development Goals.

Contact:
Dr Wyn Richards, Natural Resources International Ltd., Park House, Bradbourne Lane, Aylesford, Kent,ME20 6SN.
Tel: 01732 878659; Fax: 01732 220497; Email: w.richards@nrint.co.uk
Website: http://www.lpp.uk.com