The benefits of the farm to the community are multifold. About 80% of workers in the Dairy House Farm project come from Molapowabojang, a rural village in which this farm is located. There is no doubt that this farm contributes to the wellbeing of its employees. This project also contributes directly to community members not working in the farm. They are given liquid whey for free and the product is useful in a number of ways. It can be used to cook sour meal (sorghum or porridge). Overall, the madila product is highly nutritious making the farm contribute to development of the village by reducing the rate of malnutrition among people especially, children who benefit from it.
TopBackground
The Dairy House Farm (Figure 1) showcased in this chapter belongs to a family, Mr Batshwari Dintwa and his wife Lucy. They embarked on this project in January 2002 through the help of Citizen Entrepreneurial Development Agency (CEDA).
Figure 1. Part of entrance to Dairy House Farm
CEDA is a government initiative grant scheme to help Batswana engage in entrepreneurship with the goal of diversifying the country’s economy (Republic of Botswana, 2007). The Farm is located in Molapowabojang and it occupies 25 hectares of land. It houses about 100 herds of cattle, of which 50 were being milked at the time of the research.
Molapowabojang is one of the villages in the Ngwaketste Sub-district with a population of about 5 000 and 19 associated localities with 2 600 people. It is a typical rural area in the sense that both arable and pastoral farming are practiced. Although it experiences lack of rain like some parts of the country, pastoral and subsistence farming are a norm. It is, for example, the culture among Batswana to rear cattle for meat, fresh milk, madila and skin but not for commercial purposes. Recently, cattle industry has now grown to be commercialized and this industry has attracted many who otherwise could be concerned about white collar jobs. This turn of events has come with the extensive use of ICT in the sector, example of which is the Dairy House Farm which belongs to Mr and Mrs Dintwa and is located at Molapowabojang, about 4 km from the center of the village.
The Dintwas use mainly two types of breeds: the jerseys and Brown Swiss. They made an informed choice of breeds considering factors of costs and profits. These farmers used computations to calculate the feed and pasture needed per beast on daily, monthly and yearly basis and compared it with the output. This led them to choose Jersey because it consumes about 15-20 kg per day and produces at least 40 liters of milk daily. Other breeds, e.g. Friesian, consume more than 30 kg of feed each day and that makes it not cost effective to rear them. There are 30 workers in the Dairy House Farm project, 13 of which are at the farm while others are at the packaging house in Pitsane, head quarters in Lobatse and Gaborone madila kiosk. The dairy is located 85 km from the city of Gaborone.
TopIntuitive/Indigenous Mathematical Knowledge And Ict
Man has developed a notably great and variety of techniques and artifacts in order to survive and to satisfy the many material wants he has developed; and in the course of doing so he has utilized a great deal of practical intelligence. … Given the mobility of human hand, the flexibility of human mind, and the variety of natural materials, it is not difficult to understand the variety and ingenuity of human technology (Taylor, 1969:65).