Developing a value chain toolkit to support goat projects for smallholders : Learning from experiences of Nepal

The value chain analysis is generally conducted to build the competiveness and development strat- egy of an industrial or commercial sector. It is also increasingly mobilized by development agencies to iden- tify how small farmers or livestock keepers, small enterprises or other target groups can play a larger and more lucrative role in a particular value chain and how a value chain’s structure or characteristics can be changed to enable it to grow in ways that benefit the targeted poor breeders. The objective of the paper is to present a methodology to analyze and consider value chain development from a concrete case in Nepal. This country has experienced a significant growth in the consumption of goat meat; supply does not meet the demand and is offset by animal imports from India. Production is mainly from very small farms and the level of technical knowhow of farmers and productivity are both very low; additionally, they are very dependent on traders to access the markets. A nationwide development strategy based on the analysis of value chains has been built collectively under the leadership of Heifer International in collaboration with several stakeholders including government agencies by associating technicians, scientists, representatives of the administration. Various participatory methods and mobilized sources of information were used to coherently integrate local projects in this strategy along with the objectives of the Millennium Development Goals. Those who partici- pated during this process in Nepal have decided to mobilize their experience to formalize a general approach for the development of the goat sector to be used in other situations. The different participatory tools and methods are listed, the sources of information to be mobilized are identified and their relative relevance for analysis is dis- cussed. This toolkit is designed to facilitate analysis of the complexity of relationships and balances of powers between the actors to define the most appropriate levers and act on the various links in the value chain for meat, dairy goat, and fiber commodities. This initiative is also a part of a broader study to scale up the success fac- tors in the development projects of small family goat farms