The six-step ladder.
Records first. Then prices, then cooperatives — and only then water, breeds and breeding services. Each rung makes the next one work, so we climb in order and we don’t skip.
Records, prices, cooperatives.
The pilot teaches the three capabilities everything else stands on. Our first cohort will train 120+ producers, at least half of them women — a target we publish now and report against later.
1. Record-keeping & cost–profit literacy
Paper first. Every participant receives a pocket ledger and learns to write down what each animal or plot costs and what it earns — feed, water, transport, sale price, gross margin. Simple columns, filled in weekly.
We return at week 4 and week 12 to strengthen the habit, because the habit — not the training day — is the product.
2. Fair market-price information
We compile local market prices from public sources only and pass them on as printed sheets, SMS and WhatsApp messages. A seller who knows the going rate negotiates from level ground.
Every sheet is labelled as Baraare reference information. We are not a statistics office and we do not publish official figures.
3. Cooperative formation & bankability
We help producers organise: a constitution, a member register, group savings, minutes a bank can read. Together these become a loan-readiness file — evidence that this group keeps records and keeps its word.
A cooperative that can show its numbers stops being invisible to lenders.
Water, in order.
Water is our major second pillar, and it follows the same logic as the ledger: information first, structures second, works third.
- Map — water-point mapping: location, condition, ownership, seasonality.
- Organise — Water User Committees with signed, written rules.
- Rehabilitate — boreholes restored by licensed contractors, with Baraare as a consortium sub-grantee. New boreholes come later.
Three conditions are non-negotiable before any works: a signed community water agreement, a professional hydrogeological study, and government permits. We do not drill; licensed contractors do.
Better animals, done properly.
Once records, prices and water are working, we turn to genetics: improved breeding stock first, artificial insemination services after — delivered only through licensed veterinary partners.
A herder with a ledger knows exactly what a better animal is worth. That is why breeding sits at the top of the ladder, not the bottom.
What we hold ourselves to.
We ask producers to write the truth about their enterprises in a ledger. We owe them the same discipline about our own work.
Measurement · commitments
If a program doesn’t work, we will say so in public and change it.
[FIELD PHOTO — pocket-ledger training session, 2027]
Reserved for our own fieldwork. No identifiable faces will be shown without consent.