Ways to Expand the Animal Welfare Component in the Extension System in Senegal: A Case Study of Thies and Bambey

Abstract

In Senegal, in recent years the rural sector has undergone major reforms which are partly due to macroeconomic policy reforms adopted by the Senegalese government. Therefore, all the actors of economic and social development have a common concern and share in promoting rural agriculture (Bernard et al., 2008). Changes observed in the agricultural and rural sector reflect the will of the actors to have a productive, competitive, and sustainable agriculture system in order to ensure food security (International Monetary Fund, 2011). The purpose of the study is to develop a set of recommendations to improve the educational program planning and teaching skills of educators in the extension system by focusing on extension educators' approaches to teaching farmers and cart owners animal welfare practices for proper care of working animals. The extension agents and teachers involved in the animal husbandry and animal extension system in Thies and Bambey served as participants in this study. This descriptive qualitative study connected qualitative data derived from participant interviews, qualitative document analysis, observations of an educational program planning professional development program for state agents and university faculty members in Diourbel and Thies regions, as well as a final focus group to allow participants clarification of preliminary themes found in the data. The findings revealed 11 themes: characteristics of the participants, job expectation and responsibilities, institutional and organizational factors, capacity building and professional development plans, diagnostics of the extension system, regulations and legislations, limited sources of information, limited knowledge and skills technologies, recommendations for utilizing student-centered teaching practices, standard welfare for animal husbandry, recommendation for acceptance and improvement standard animal welfare related to the four research questions which addressed the topics of challenging current teaching methods used in the extension system for other owners of animal species in the animal extension programs, the use of student-centered teaching practices in extension education and university instruction, and the level assistance given to farmers in order to ensure accepted standards of animal welfare working animal and other animal species in the animal husbandry system.