Africa Centre for Holistic Management (ACHM)

Properly managed livestock produces more forage which results in plant litter covered ground with increased water infiltration capacity. Desertification can be stopped by planning grazing to facilitate plant growth on bare patches of land. HLLM avoids usage of fire as tool for land management but instead banks on continual animal movements for pest and moribund control. HLLM can be applied on crop fields to increasing soil fertility yielding 3 -5 times more than un-impacted fields without applying inorganic fertilizers. ACHM uses a community mobilization and experimental learning processes to ensure high level of community participation and sense of ownership. Community members trained in HLLM so they'll share learning with peers to successfully implement HLLM in communities. Youths involved in training programs guarantee sustainability of practice. Traditional and local leaders act as point of entry into a community as they have a voice that can be heard and also have power to summon people to meetings. Challenges of predation are minimized by use of predator proof movable kraals, predator deterring lights, and 24hr herding and monitoring. Low acceptance of innovation by key stakeholders was another challenge and this was overcome by awareness meetings and conferences. In communities, grouping animal together to come up with one functional community herd has been a challenge with issues such as disease management being raised but development of community mobilization strategy and engagement of key stakeholders such as Government department of livestock, veterinary services and capacity building of both stakeholders as well as grassroots people implementing the projects proved to be the solution. Benchmarks in a chain of success are Buy-in and support from leaders & participation of livestock owners, Commitment and Support for program team in the community, Trained herders & community support of them...