Ducks as small-scale investment for women

In the West coast of Aceh, the Aceh Rehabilitation and Reconstruction Agency has made significantprogress in rebuilding the infrastructure of the area devastated by the tsunami almost 2 years ago. Newhouses have been rebuilt for most of the survivors to return to as their homes. In the agricultural sector,many programs have been focused toward either re-establishing the production system of food crops forfood safety of the community or re-development of tree cropping either for production or environmentalpurposes. While these programs are being set up and running, livestock components can be established tocomplement with the on-going programs. Since livestock production is basically non-land-based activities, aproduction system can be set up quickly without having to wait for the soil condition to recover from thetsunami effects. Livestock components can serve as nutritional nourishment for the population in theaffected areas, and there is also indeed a need to repopulate their livestock which were destroyed duringthe catastrophe. Poultry can easily be used to provide job opportunities and also to generate income in theresettlement area as well as in the area where the community have returned to their own land, becausechicken or ducks are quick yielding and usually farmers are already familiar with. Goats were also verycommonly found in villages before the tsunami, and their production can easily be re-established in thearea in line with reforestation programs using tree legumes as sources of animal feed.Livestock has been part of daily activities among farmers in most rural areas of Indonesia. Prior to thetsunami, buffaloes, goats, local chicken and ducks were the main species of livestock which can easily befound in West Aceh with large population sizes. Buffaloes, goats and also some cows can be found grazingin paddocks or common grazing areas, being raised under traditional system. Buffalo meats are generallypreferable to the local community to beef as the custom for many generations. Local chicken and duckswere kept in the backyard in almost every farmer household, and they were raised under scavenging andsubsistent system. Feed ingredients were obtained from local resources which were available abundantlyand for chicken and ducks sago palms or rice bran was used mostly as the source of carbohydrate. Ingeneral, livestock was kept mostly only as saving for the family and not considered as a commercial activity,and therefore their productivity was not optimal.

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