44 years old Anna Ghazaryan is one of the farmers participated in trainings, exchange visits, and received individual consultancy in cattle breeding, farm management, and business planning within the “Livestock Development in the South of Armenia” project implemented by Strategic Development Agency (SDA) and funded by Swiss Agency for Cooperation and Development (SDC). Anna lives with her two children and husband in the village of Yelpin of Vayots Dzor Region. Anna’s family, like everyone else’s in the village, was involved in cattle breeding. They used to practice mainly traditional cattle breeding methods which were enough to cover their basic family needs only. Anna affirms that the knowledge and skills gained in the Project capacity-building activities allowed her not only to see the benefits of their hard work but importantly to build confidence and self-esteem too.
“I practice all the received knowledge in my daily work and I can say that the positive results over the animal feeding and the farm management became obvious already within some months. If before the two-month-old calf used to weigh 60 kilograms, today the two-month-old calf weighs up to 80 kilograms,”- mentioned Anna by emphasizing that these results were achieved due to the new knowledge and professional advice on animal feeding and care. Anna has already practiced artificial insemination (AI) in her farm, bought milking equipment and fodder beet with the help of which the average milk yield per animal has increased from 10-12 liters to 12-15 liters daily. Due to her hard work, Anna increased the number of dairy cattle from 2 up to 5 heads just in a year. She signed a contract with “Yerpin Agricultural Cooperative” for milk supply and in the past 12 months, already received an income of 800,000 AMD from milk and meat sale. Anna has further plans including fodder mill purchase, an increase in the number of pedigree cattle, and the expansion of the area for cattle shed. She has already taken steps to implement those. Anna has also become a role model for other villagers and they started following her example. They ask for advice to understand how she succeeded and try to adopt the same practice in their farms.
