Animal husbandry - the key to success? : a study of small scale farmers, dairy farmers and orphans in Zambia

Sammanfattning: Zambia is a developing African country with a large part of the inhabitants living in rural areas. Traditionally, farming and animal husbandry have been in small scale, and the knowledge about farming has been transferred between parents and children when working together. Since the 1980s, Zambia has had a devastating HIV/aids epidemic which has hit the society hard on all levels. In this study, traditional small scale farmers, female members of small scale dairy cooperatives and orphans were interviewed about their animal husbandry routines and farm. The aims were to investigate if animal husbandry has been affected by the HIV/aids epidemic, if animal husbandry can be beneficial for HIV orphans and if animal related activities (dairy farming in this case) can have a positive impact on the living situation of women. Conclusions drawn from this study is that the living situation does improve due to dairy cooperative membership, the orphans in this study have not benefited from keeping animals and more extensive studies are needed in order to understand the effects of HIV/aids on animal husbandry.