From the establishment of its first veterinary training center in 1988, the NGO Dutch Committee for Afghanistan-Veterinary Programs (DCA-VET) has sought to help the people of Afghanistan better their livelihoods and strengthen their food security by improving the health and raising the productivity of their livestock. DCA-VET began as a humanitarian response to the hardships created by natural disasters and protracted war, the combined impact of which had severely diminished the livestock population. Today, DCA-VET’s pairing of quality veterinary services and animal husbandry programs constitutes a vital development strategy in a country where roughly 23 million of the 32.5 million inhabitants rely upon agriculture and livestock for their essential needs.
DCA-VET is the primary veterinary aid organization for livestock owners in 29 of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces, and its activities directly or indirectly benefit millions of farmers every year. With its main office in Kabul and regional offices in Mazar-i-Sharif, Kandahar, and Herat, DCA-VET retains 300 national staff members, all but four of whom are Afghans.
A Four-Tiered Approach
To enhance Afghan farmers’ knowledge of animals and facilitate access to affordable animal health care services, DCA-VET has implemented a program structured around four core elements:
- training of para-veterinarians (paravets) and basic veterinary workers (BVWs)
- establishing and supporting veterinary field units (VFUs)
- educating farmers about good animal husbandry practices
- ensuring availability of effective medications and vaccines
Paravets trained by DCA-VET complete instruction in mid-level veterinary skills, such as vaccination procedures and diagnosis and treatment of common animal diseases. Upon completing training, paravets return to their home community to start a VFU, through which they deliver veterinary care and educate local farmers. Though provided with equipment and technical support by DCA-VET, VFUs assess fees for all services. The revenue allows VFUs to develop into sustainable, private entities that collectively form a network of animal health care providers across Afghanistan.
Training Animal Care Workers
DCA-VET is the principal organization for veterinary education in Afghanistan, having trained over 1,000 paravets since beginning its efforts. Paravet and BVW students take courses at training and support centers in Charikar, Herat, Mazar-i-Sharif, and Kandahar, and receive full room and board during their studies. With resources including animal models, a veterinary library, and a laboratory, each facility is designed for both theoretical and practical instruction.
Curricula ranges from the 24-week paravet qualification course to short refresher courses on individual subjects and a one-week extension course on how to convey technical information in a way that farmers can easily comprehend. Emphasizing interactivity and problem solving, knowledgeable Afghan instructors teach classes in Dari or Pashto and utilize cutting-edge audio-visual aids and other educational materials.
Paravet trainees preparing to staff a VFU usually have at least a tenth-grade education. Before beginning training, they must receive approval from their village shura and the local Department of Agriculture, Irrigation, and Livestock. DCA-VET also recruits students to train as mobile paravets or BVWs to meet the need for animal care and infectious disease control among the nomadic Kuchi communities.
Delivering Local Vet Services through VFUs
DCA-VET supports 570 VFUs in Afghanistan, and it aims to foster a viable public-private animal health care system by connecting the VFUs with established public veterinary institutions. Each VFU is located in a staff member’s house or rented facility at a site at least 15 kilometers away from the next nearest VFU. Ideally situated in the center of a village or district, a typical VFU operates with a staff of one or more paravets and serves an average population of 25,000 livestock.
The primary services provided by VFUs consist of disease evaluation and treatment, basic surgical procedures, and vaccination. To further promote the vitality and productivity of farm animals, VFU staff offer such auxiliary services as artificial insemination and nutritional advice.
When a new VFU launches, it is outfitted with all necessary equipment, from veterinary kits and a cattle crush to a motorbike for performing mobile care. The technical and material assistance rendered by DCA-VET during the first two years of a VFU’s operation includes a supply of pharmaceuticals and vaccines and monthly visits from a facilitator who tracks medicine use, visits local farmers, and guides the VFU staff in developing the capabilities required to meet the specific needs of their community.
Extension Activities Build Awareness among Farmers
In coordination with VFU staff, members of DCA-VET’s Extension Core Team organize groups of 10 to 20 livestock owners in two villages from within the territory served by each VFU. These groups meet once a month to learn best practices in animal care that they can then disseminate throughout the community to educate farmers and improve the overall health of livestock populations. Extension meetings also help develop clients for the VFUs by acting as a forum for informing residents of available services.
Accompanying the extension groups are a variety of supplementary extension education methods tailored to the unique context of each individual community. DCA-VET staff members demonstrate new techniques, such as the treatment of wheat straw with urea, while farmer field days bring together agricultural producers from across an entire region to share their knowledge. Where broadcast media is available, DCA-VET may deliver messages containing seasonally appropriate information via television and radio transmissions.
Distributing Effective Medications
When beginning its activities in the late 1980s, DCA-VET observed that Afghan livestock owners tended to purchase fraudulent or ineffective medicine from local bazaars. In response, it coordinated the importation of high-grade pharmaceuticals from foreign suppliers and distributed the drugs to VFUs. Treatments with the medications were initially subsidized, and once farmers experienced the benefits of these drugs, they readily abandoned the bazaars in favor of buying medicines from the VFUs.
These biologically active substances must, however, be refrigerated to remain effective. DCA-VET addressed the need for a continuous cold supply chain by equipping all VFUs with solar-powered refrigerators for storage and coolers for transportation of medicines in the field. To ensure the sustainable supply of affordable, quality medicine into the future, DCA-VET set up the independent company VetServ in 2011. VetServ continues to conduct its business in alignment with DCA-VET’s mission, and it supplies the VFUs with the medicines and instruments required to enhance the health and production of Afghanistan’s livestock.