APA – Dakar (Senegal) – An experiment carried out on around twenty children has shown that yoghurt made from goat’s milk, with nutritional values very similar to those of mother’s milk, can help to overcome stunted growth caused by malnutrition.
In Louga, in the north-west of Senegal, many babies suffer from malnutrition. This is generally due to a food ration that is insufficient in quantity and quality, but also to various illnesses. Undernourishment also includes a lack of access to food within the family, inadequate maternal and child care practices, and a lack of access to health services and/or hygiene and sanitation systems.
Widespread poverty, the unequal distribution and control of resources, political or ideological decisions or inadequate access to basic social services (social protection, health, education, etc.) can also lead to the undernourishment of infants.
This situation, which has harmful consequences for babies’ growth, can be resolved with goat’s milk. In a research project entitled “Study of milk production and growth performance of Saanen, mixed-breed and local goats; use of goat’s yoghurt as a treatment for malnourished children in Louga,” Mamadou Korka Diallo, a final-year agricultural engineering student at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure d’Agriculture (National School of Agriculture, ENSA) in Thies, observed a significant increase in the weight of the babies on whom the experiment was conducted.
“We decided to carry out a scientific study on the effect of 250 grams of yoghurt on the growth of moderately malnourished children. The study lasted 6 months, including 105 days for the collection of zootechnical performance data and 60 days for the nutritional tests. This enabled us to observe an average increase in baby weight of around 200 grams per week for those less than a year old. We therefore concluded that goat’s milk could be a palliative for undernourished babies,” explains the young researcher.
A more favorable product for babies under a year old
To conduct the study, Mr. Diallo worked on a sample of around twenty babies aged between 6 and 36 months. At the end of the experiment, babies under one year of age showed the best results. “After a month’s experiment, we noticed that children under twelve months old had more gains. Based on this experience, we decided to select children in this age group to improve the results. If we were to repeat the experiment, I would advise giving priority to this category of infants,” explains Sister Leonie Diagne, head nurse at the health post of the ‘Congregation des Filles du Saint-Cœur de Marie’ (Congregation of the Daughters of the Holy Heart of Mary.
Dieynaba Ba, born with a very low birth weight, is a perfect example. “This little girl was the best performer in the program. She is the first to be released for recovery. Born weighing less than 600 grams, after each week of experimentation she gained 200 grams thanks to regular consumption of our yoghurt,” the ENSA student says.
Mohammed Ba, who is in good shape, has also benefited from the treatment given to Dieynaba Ba. For his mother, Ndeye Fatou Diouf, the experiment should be continued.
“When he was born, my son suffered from malnutrition and was very underweight. He often fell ill. But thanks to these products and the care of the sisters, he is now a normal weight and doing very well. We are very grateful to you and we want to see this project continue for the well-being of all the beneficiaries,” she pleads.
A result of action research
One of the missions of the ‘Institut Sénégalais de Recherche Agricole’ (Senegalese Institute of Agricultural Research, ISRA) is the creation of scientific knowledge, the production of technological innovations, the development of decision-making tools to improve agriculture and livestock farming, and the promotion and transfer of research results.
This is the background to the study, which is part of the activities of the Accelerating the Impacts of Climate Research (AICCRA) project of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research for Africa (CGIAR).
The project focuses on livestock farming, with the initial aim of supporting and promoting milk and meat value chains. To achieve this, particular emphasis has been placed on goat farmers. Mahorera billy goats and Saanen females were made available to a number of pilot breeders.
ISRA guided them through the entire model, including the control of feed management, which had to be accompanied by a forage field, as well as the development of forage resources.
”In Louga, we used groundnut cakes, and forage crops such as panicum, Maral alfa and alfalfa. AICCRA has added the 55:14 variety of cowpea for fodder, which gives quality tops with up to 16 percent nitrogen. Based on the availability of these different resources, we have formulated rations to support the goat farm. Thanks to this, we have gone from producing less than a liter of milk a day to 6 liters without finishing the contents of the udder,” says Dr. Fafa Sow, veterinary surgeon at the Dahra Djolof zootechnical center. Dr. Sow, who supervised Mamadou Korka Diallo, is a zootechnician and researcher at the ISRA in the field of animal nutrition.
“Thanks to our research, we know that a goat can only consume a maximum of two kilos of fodder a day. We now had to choose between groundnut hay containing 7 percent nitrogen and cowpea hay with 16 percent nitrogen. We proposed the latter. As a concentrate, we chose groundnut shells and ground oilcake. This composition enabled us to obtain these results,” the ISRA researcher explains.
Successful scale-up from Uganda to Senegal
On the strength of these results and an experience he gained during his doctoral training in Belgium, Dr. Fafa Sow decided to add value to milk production through processing, but also by testing consumption among the population.
“The aim of Mr. Diallo’s paper was simply to test rations based on by-products to see how milk production could be improved and to train farmers to process yoghurt in order to do business. By chance, we met the sisters who were helping families whose children were suffering from malnutrition. I suggested that they incorporate goat’s milk into the diet of the children they were looking after, without explaining to them my previous experience in Uganda, where yoghurt made from goat’s milk gave excellent results,” Dr. Sow explains.
At the health post, Sister Leonie was already looking after some malnourished children. They were given a ration of porridge made from flour of various locally available foods. For the yoghurt consumption test, two samples were selected, with age as the variable. The first was made up of children aged between one year and 36 months, and the second of children aged one year or more.
For the former, Dr. Sow recommended a quarter of a liter of yoghurt a day, and up to 0.5 litters of yoghurt a day for those over a year old. “We should compare the results of the two batches after a year’s experiment. But after 45 days of consuming the goat’s milk-based yoghurt, I have received follow-up results from the nurse showing that more than 50 percent of the children monitored have come out of the malnutrition criterion and are now at the normal criterion. These are the same results that were observed in Uganda,” the supervisor confides.
Natural products
In Senegal, climate change, marked by long dry seasons, means that fodder resources fluctuate considerably from one year to the next, as does the fodder value of natural rangelands. These changes in the agricultural context have gradually led to the marginalisation of livestock farming, which must find new adaptation strategies if it is to be productive.
AICCRA is therefore promoting climate-smart species to help agropastoralists become more resilient. “Whatever the quality or relevance of our results, the question of the relationship between our approach and climate-smart indicators comes up very often. Before doing anything, we always take into account the agro-ecological approach. These forages have been produced naturally and contain no chemicals. Similarly, to make the yoghurt, we use calf rennet. This gives us a product that is 99 percent natural. All this takes into account the indicators that AICCRA – SN is seeking to promote as part of a climate-smart approach,” the zootechnician explains.
This system also has a number of advantages for the beneficiaries. “For the farmer, it means saying that you don’t have to have a goat farm and depend on industrial products to feed your animals. We encourage agropastoralism. This means that every owner of a goat farm must have a fodder production field where agro-fruit and market gardening activities can also be introduced. We always encourage these mixed farms. The water supply is provided by a solar pump, which makes these activities very economical. It’s a model that AICCRA should encourage and which, if promoted, will enable us to have young agricultural-entrepreneurs who are totally independent and who will in turn recruit other young people,” Dr. Fafa Sow hopes.
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