Influence of culture and stakeholders In Botswana’s dairy system

Abstract

ABSTRACT The government of Botswana initiated dairy industry development in the early 1980’s to reduce the country’s dependence on milk imports from neighbouring countries, particularly South Africa and Zimbabwe. The other objectives of dairy development were to diversify the economy away from mineral revenue and the traditional agricultural activities of beef cattle farming and subsistence rain-fed arable production, and to reduce rural - urban migration by employment creation in rural areas. The Government created a fund under a Financial Assistance Policy, which assisted prospective dairy farmers with a grant-loan scheme that provided up to 85 % grant with the balance as a loan depending on remoteness of the farm. The policy deliberately favored women’s empowerment by awarding a higher grant to female applicants. An evaluation of the dairy industry in 2000 reported that it was not performing up to planned expectations, especially, with respect to dairy cow management. It was reported that dairy farmers were equating the management of dairy cows to that of beef cattle by letting the cows travel long distances foraging in the bush with no supplementary feed given to them. This poor cow management resulted in low milk output per cow, a high number of dry cows and high calf mortality. These problems provided the foundation for this research. The thesis of this research is that during the planning stages of government projects such as dairy industry development policy, much emphasis is placed on the economic and technical viability as success factors, while the importance of culture is overlooked. I argue that, the success of project implementation should be considered as part of a system which includes cultural factors and the influences of many stakeholders. The main objective of the research was to understand how dairy farmers in Botswana combined the technical and economic management systems advocated in national policy with management approaches inspired by cultural knowledge and experience; to identify why dairy farmers find it expedient to infuse cultural management approaches into their farm management systems. Systems theory was used to understand the state of dairy farming systems in Botswana. A theory on stakeholder analysis was used to complement systems analysis because farming systems are also human activity systems. Therefore, an understanding of individuals and institutions that impact on dairy farming system is necessary to be viewed from the farmers’ perspective. A constructivist epistemology with a phenomenological methodology using interviews and observations were used to collect data from four sites in Botswana comprising, two peri-urban areas and two rural areas The research indicates that in situations where technical dairy knowledge was lacking or not easy to implement because of economic constraints, farmers relied heavily on cultural knowledge and practices derived from customary beef cattle fanning. In addition farmers received a great deal of influence from stakeholders at different stages of dairy production, reinforcing both technical and cultural practices in varying ways. The study concludes that fanners depended a great deal on cultural knowledge to manage their farms, owing to insufficient knowledge of dairy farming practices, caused by inadequate farmers support services to handle demands from the introduced dairy fanning systems. There was thus a mismatch between government intentions and farmers’ realities complicated further by stakeholder influences.