Mdukatshani Rural Development Project Annual report 2020

In the field on dipping day. Dr. Tim Gibbs with Bongabuhle Mweli, chairman of the Ncunjane Dip Committee, and Hlengiwe Ndlela, a Mdukatshani staff member, who is translating.

Tim questions Mweli on his work as umdiphu, organizing the dip for about 90 surrounding livestock owners. Tim calls KZN`s Livestock Associations “remarkable organs of civil society.”

A QUIET, LARGELY UNNOTICED SUCCESS STORY

It was an odd subject to draw the interest of an historian: Community organized livestock dipping tanks. But although Dr Tim Gibbs is a lecturer in African History at University College London, he has worked extensively in the rural areas of South Africa, and in many provinces seen livelihoods collapse after livestock dipping fell apart in the years of democratic transition. KwaZulu-Natal was different. Why? Tim was no stranger to Mdukatshani when he visited the project in August to do fieldwork for a study of dipping in KZN, published in June as a PLAAS Working Paper titled Collapse, conflict or social cohesion? Learning from livestock dipping associations in KwaZulu-Natal .* There are about 1600 dip tanks in the province, each crucial to the wellbeing of an estimated 1 500 000 cattle owned by 168 000 African households. Although 95% of black cattle-owners have fewer than ten animals, the combined value of their herds is R12 billion, an investment sustained by a system of dipping which is organized on the ground through elected Livestock Associations. “Remarkable organs of civil society,” Tim calls them, “which might be collectively collecting R 450 million in membership fees each year”. The LA`s meet monthly, and have direct contact with government, which builds the dips and provides free insecticide, a collaboration Tim describes as “a quiet, largely unnoticed success story'”. * www.plaas.org.za/learning-from-livestock-dipping-associations-in-kwazulu-natal/

Boys are in charge of collecting and driving the cattle to the dip, but although they know each animal, and notice if it`s sick, get little recognition for their knowledge and skill. These boys are among the many local children who had no facilities for online learning so stopped schooling during the Covid 19 lockdown.

Cattle swim through a dip immersed in a mixture that kills the parasites that cause disease.

Dipping cattle is man`s work. Dip Day at Nodada in Msinga. GAP is working with 140 dip tank communities in five districts in KwaZulu-Natal.

Madwaleni Dip, Zululand. GAP has a web page for each dip where it is working.

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