Stigende antal køer på stald har skabt mygge- og flueproblemer i Kenya, men et projekt fra FNs Fødevare- og Landbrugsorganisation (FAO) viser gode resultater i kampen mod de sygdomsbærende insekter.
ROME, 27. March 2013 (FAO Media Centre): A simple but innovative use of insecticide-impregnated nets to protect livestock is doubling and in some cases tripling milk outputs on smallholder dairy farms while also reducing mosquito-borne illnesses in humans in Kisii, Kenya, in the country’s western highlands.
The FAO project is part of a wider strategy to vastly improve animal health in areas most affected by tropical diseases.
The nets are environmentally safe and have drastically cut the number of flies, mosquitoes and other disease transmitting insect vectors (overføre sygdomme via insekter) by close to 90 percent, and cases of mastitis (yverbetændelse), a bacterial disease that can be spread by flies as well as poor hygiene during milking, have been halved on smallholder dairy farms.
(Yverbetændelse var i mange år et stort problem i dansk kvægbrug også, red.)
Farmers also learned basic hygiene measures to reduce illnesses in their cows.
Knock-on effects
The mosquito nets are having a significant knock-on benefit for families: in Kisii, preliminary results show that farmers are reporting 40 percent fewer cases of malaria in their homes.
While Kenyans often attribute illness to malaria without knowing the true cause, a direct human health benefit shouldn’t come as a surprise.
One farmer in the Kisii area, Mary Munyega Nyandeo, said, ” I used to milk around 2 litres of milk, but since the nets were brought and the flies disappeared, I now milk around 4 or 5 litres a day, so I make profit.”
What’s more, she said, “we have had no more malaria.”
Another farmer, Mary Owendo, said, “Before this, I thought milk was only for the home. I never knew that selling milk could help me pay my children’s school fees.” She even managed to pay to get electricity in her home, thanks to the cows.
Læs videre på
http://www.fao.org/news/story/en/item/173224/icode
