Community-based animal health training and creative change in Bolivia

This paper looks at a Community Originated Livestock Training programme in Bolivia which began in the late 1980s. The programme involved community training in livestock production and healthcare in a sustainable farm system. The priorities were to provide training, and build local people's capacity to develop and administer their own programmes. Three basic premises guided these programmes:|Every farmer should have as much access to information about livestock in their primary language as they want;|If farm families have an understanding of some farm economics, and have good income and nutrition from their livestock, they will want to invest in the health and care of their livestock so that they keep producing a good income;|CAHWs are most valuable in the long term as an integral part of a local organisation rather than only as an individual entrepreneur.|Approaches that are common to these premises are presented in the paper.