In many of the world’s dry areas, goats provide poor people with nutrition and livelihoods. An imGoats Project is working to transform the lives of goat keepers in India and Mozambique by turning their subsistence-level goat production into viable and profitable enterprises.

This two-year (2011–2012) project aims to improve the performance of small ruminant value chains in India and Mozambique so they sustainably increase household incomes and food security and reduce the vulnerability of poor goat keepers, especially women. The project will develop and test models for developing goat value chains using innovation platforms and producer hubs.

Innovation platforms provide spaces for all actors in the goat value chain—from veterinary and other input suppliers to landless producers and small-scale farmers to middlemen buyers to market sellers—to interact to improve the performance of this value chain and the benefits it generates for all the actors along it. Producer hubs allow goat owners to sell their animals collectively, at better prices than they could get individually, and provide the producers with more cost-effective goods and services. The main aim of this project is to empower women and other relatively marginalized groups (e.g., scheduled castes and tribes in India and households caring for HIV/AIDS sufferers and headed by women in Mozambique) while developing goat value chain models that benefit the poor. Lessons learned and opportunities for scaling up and out will be communicated to policymakers and development practitioners.

This project is being conducted in semi-arid areas of India (Udaipur District, Rajasthan, and Dumka District, Jharkhand) and Mozambique (Inhassoro District, Northern Inhambane Province).

The International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) is responsible for overall project implementation and leading the research. The BAIF Development Research Foundation in India and CARE International in Mozambique will lead the development aspects and local administration in their respective project sites. The project will collaborate with national researchers and other local development partners and will link up with community development projects supported by the International Fund for Agricultural Development in India and Mozambique to share experiences and lessons.

Download a brochure on ILRI’s imGoats Project or visit the project blogsite.
See a presentation by ILRI scientist Ranjitha Puskur on the imGOATS Project: Small ruminant value chains for reducing poverty and increasing food security in dryland areas of India and Mozambique, February 2011.