Animal-raising provides sustainable increases in income and a path out of poverty. It also takes some skill to be successful. In our experience, visiting a location to see successful farmers brings the biggest change. For this reason, YWAM Mercy and SSCD organized a visit to the Goat and Rabbit Research Institute.
When we encourage local farmers to take the opportunity to improve their incomes through goat-raising, we provide training, access to experts, and exposure to others who are doing well, so they can see for themselves what it would be like and talk to others who are having success.
The group included members of our Opportunity Team who are developing new business models. Mr. Thanh, our Veterinary consultant, joined the group as they followed to the Director of the Institute on a tour of the breeding areas. They learned about various breeding species and which ones are best to raise in their location. The Institute has proved these breeds are more successful that the commonly raised local goat breed.
In addition, the members learned about new scientific discoveries, and technical methods to gain better income from goat-raising. Optimizing feed especially interested our group when they learned that any food left by goats, could be eaten by sheep without negatively affecting the sheep’s health. They saw sheep raising could be a parallel opportunity for earning additional income.
The SSCD staff and the Director of the Institute also provided a short training on family business and developing business models, that included methods to stimulate innovation for new income generation ideas.
The director also shared about the goat farming situation in the northern part of Vietnam, such as about the types of goats that are currently popular in the market.
Our recent visit to the Institute has helped participants gain knowledge and interact with each other. They had the opportunity to connect with goat farmers who are successfully raising new breeds. Many of these farmers have scaled up their farming efforts to gain additional income. Our group also gained a greater understanding of the current market situation.