Sustainable Agro-Livestock Livelihood and Gender Empowerment (STAGE) in North Sumatra

22-0806-09

Project Profile          

The project will empower disadvantaged and poor women involve in small farming in rural areas in North Sumatra Province. The project will enable the participants to be self-reliance by providing productive resources such as livestock, and horticulture. The project will also empower not only to increase their income to meet their basic needs but also educate them to practice environment friendly farming.

This three years project will assist 240 original and 480 pass on families who are poor since the most vulnerable poor in rural areas are women, most of participants will be women. The original participating families are 240 who will pass on to other 480 families within three years. The project will provide livestock of goat, pig and fish integrated with horticulture and medicinal plants.

Out of 240 original families, each of families will receive 4 goats/pigs (1 male and 3 female), 300 fingerlings and 3 kg of horticulture seeds (including medicinal plants). Of these 120 families will raise goats and 120 families will raise pigs.

Social capital of project participants will be empowered by facilitating effective existence function of community self-help groups. Both technical and non-technical trainings will be supported by this project. Technical trainings will include improved animal management; organic farming; aquaculture; post harvest processing and entrepreneurship; water monitoring; and forest conservation. Meanwhile non-technical trainings will include Heifer’s Cornerstones and holistic development model; leadership and group development; gender equity; and social analysis.

The project will be implemented in collaboration with 3 local NGOs as project partners. The NGO will provide day-to-day project activities, including group development and mobilization.

Background and History of Project Holder/Partner

Heifer International Indonesia has worked in Indonesia since 1982 by providing support for various livestock based livelihood empowerment for rural poor. Heifer International Indonesia developed partnerships with local organizations, which provided social mobilization to communities. The country office has been established in 1997, with concentrated on ten provinces on Sumatra Island. The island has a population of 50 million in ten provinces. Heifer Indonesia has been registered officially as a branch of an international NGO since the signing the Memorandum of Understanding between the Ministry of Agriculture and Heifer International in December 2003

Heifer International Indonesia is committed to values based planning and development. It uses holistic development approach in its program. This means that the impact of support given to community such as livestock resources, horticulture and trainings will be holistic. This is supported by implementation of Cornerstone for Just and sustainable Development.

Support provided to community include livestock such as goats, cattle, water buffalo, bees, sheep, fish, chickens, ducks, quail, and pigs. In addition the program includes empowerment of small farmers through trainings and education.

All current Heifer Indonesia projects are integrating gender concern since Heifer Indonesia has embarked its gender mainstreaming strategy.

Local Conditions and Opportunities for Assistance

Local Conditions

Poverty is still pervasive in North Sumatra in other provinces of Indonesia. Out of 13 million population of this province, it is estimated that 20% are living below poverty line. The official measurement of poverty in Indonesia based on basic needs approach based on consumption module, equal to Rp 180,000 (about 20 USD) per month. This of course will be rocketed if the measure uses the 2 USD per day.

In this province, the most poverty rate is higher in the district of Pak-Pak Barat, Toba Samosir and Langkat. In these districts, the number of undernourished children under age of 5 years is about 35-37 %. Majority poor people in North Sumatra province are live in rural area. Generally, the prime causes of high poverty among poor families are lack of skills and knowledge; limited productive assets; have no access into financial services, and others public services such as infrastructures.

It has been widely accepted that among the poor, women are the most vulnerable groups.  In Indonesia women have lower literacy rate (86% compared with 94% for men), fewer mean years of schooling (6.5 years compared with 7.6 years for men) and a smaller share of earned income (women contributed 38%, compared with 62% for men).

As rooted in patriarchal tradition, women in North Sumatra has heavier workload compare to male. This is resulted from unequal work division at household level where women not only involve in domestic works but also in crops management.

Women also have limited control over assets. Women usually have less inheritance rights embedded in Malay and  Batak tradition. In addition, men usually dominate decision making regarding the acquisition and use of resources. Though limited credit sources is available for rural areas, but more often that women lack of collateral to access this services. Similarly, there is unequal distribution of household income in rural community in this area. This happen because of sale of crops and asses often become prerogative of men. 

In addition, another serious issue persists in North Sumatra province is environmental degradation. Another environment issue is high use of chemical pesticides and fertilizer among farmers. This condition could lead into serious threat to the livelihoods of rural poor in North Sumatra province.

More often, the lack of education opportunity for small farmers will result in lack of skills and knowledge thereby the use of agriculture technology in crops management will also limited. More often technology they use not ecologically friendly. They are trapped in use of mass chemical inputs which will worsen the quality of soil and water. Another example is slash and burn practices for land clearing prior to crops cultivation. Though it is not the main cause of deforestation, the forest destruction as a result of expansion of farming land is still significant.

Opportunity for Assistance

Women in rural areas will be provided productive resources of livestock, fish, and horticulture. This will enable women to have access and control over productive resources. Income generating activities by women not only to increase bargaining position of women but also improve well-being of their families and communities.

The beneficiaries will also be trained on animal management and organic farming. Other trainings will include gender equity, products marketing and entrepreneurship. Women will form community self-help groups which will have their own saving and credit scheme. This groups will nurture the development of leadership capacity of women in rural areas.

This will lead to greater responsibility of women in community and inside household. Men will be more sensitive to gender equity by share decision making within the family.  Field-based trainings will be facilitated by NGO partners including gender awareness for men. 

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