Send a Cow has added its support to a recent World Society for the Protection of Animals report that shows how industrialised animal production exacerbates global poverty and puts a massive strain on the world's natural resources.
The report, 'Industrial Animal Agriculture - Part of the Poverty Problem', is also a call to action for policy makers to "support humane and sustainable agriculture, local production for local consumption, and the achievement and maintenance of a healthy diet".
"This is an excellent report," says Send a Cow's Chief Executive, Martin Geake. "It is the first of its kind to effectively generate awareness of the impact that commercial farming has on the world's poorest people - whilst at the same time encouraging investment in grass roots farming programmes that tackle the issues keeping them trapped in poverty."
Around 75 per cent of the world's poor live in rural areas and rely on their land for a livelihood. In many African countries over-cultivation has left soils exhausted. In others, conflict has wiped out livestock. And now climate change means weather patterns are less reliable.
Send a Cow works with community groups in Africa, providing livestock and training in animal wellbeing, organic farming practices and natural resource management to help families rejuvenate tired soils, grow more and better crops, improve diets and generate an income from the sale of surplus produce.
Within its report, WSPA encourages the international development sector and national governments to invest in small-scale programmes - rather than focusing on the commercial farming sector as a solution for improving economies.
In Africa, Send a Cow programmes have already provided the proof that such investments deliver the results. In Lesotho, Send a Cow has completed the first phase of a project with the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation which found its "innovative strategies and techniques to be very appropriate for protecting and improving livelihoods" of rural communities.
In Rwanda the government has chosen Send a Cow as a partner to help deliver on its "One cow per poor family" vision for 2020, providing families with the essential training needed to ensure that livestock remains healthy and productive as part of an integrated farming system designed to improve food and income security.
And in Uganda, a recent independent evaluation of Send a Cow's work with poor farming families in the north of the country indicated that there was "excitement, pride and hope among beneficiaries [whose] diets have improved, incomes increased and gender roles revolutionised."
Send a Cow attributes the success of its projects throughout Africa to an approach that focuses on working closely with communities to ensure that the careful balance between people, their livestock and the environment is maintained.
"We hope that the WSPA report will encourage other governments and development organisations to invest in community based farming projects, so that even more people have the chance to work their way out of poverty," concluded Mr Geake.
