Chronicle Editor
Nqobile Tshili, [email protected]
MEN usually dominate the cattle rearing business in most families, with women expected to perform supporting roles. However, the case is different for Mrs Rita Dube (57) from Mbuyazwe in Umguza District, who has literally taken the bull by the horns regarding cattle rearing.
Mrs Dube is actively involved in looking after her family’s cattle while her husband, Eaneas Dube, takes a back seat. Under normal circumstances, the family also produces stock feed, which is sold to other farmers. But due to the El Niño-induced drought this year, they only supplied other farmers with stock feed until the end of March.
Chronicle visited the couple’s farm on Tuesday, where it observed Mrs Dube assessing some of the weaned calves. She then requested her husband to bring more stock feed, produced using indigenous fruits. She becomes elaborate in explaining how she looks after the livestock and to her, cattle rearing is just like raising a child, while observing that cattle farming has uplifted her.
“Cattle farming has uplifted me as a woman. It has dignified me, although I still experience challenges, particularly as a woman. I can now stand in front of men and teach them about livestock production. I have been called on several platforms to speak on livestock farming. When a woman becomes a cattle farmer, they start treating the animals with the same motherly love they do with their children. You become attached to the cattle and in the process, it helps to grow the business,” she said.
Mrs Dube said many times women fail to understand, especially when men want to spend money on buying stock feed, but being heavily involved in farming has enabled her to appreciate the importance of properly taking care of the animals.
The former Bulawayo City Council employee narrated how she forced her family to relocate to the farm, having spent most of their time in Bulawayo. “I’m the one who initiated that we move to the farm, which is about 50 hectares. In town, we used to live in a plot, which was about four hectares and we would farm in both areas. We were not generating much on the farm despite it being bigger. So, one day, when we had visited the farm, on our way back, I told my husband that I was relocating to the farm permanently. I told my (four) children that we are moving to the plot, but this did not go down well with him and the children,” she said.
“They even held meetings ganging up against me, but finally, we moved in 2013. We didn’t even tell our relatives because we knew some of them would start discouraging us by saying ‘susiyahlala ekhaya’.”
In the past, lack of productivity in rural areas has seen it being linked to regression, but the Government is pushing rural industrialisation programmes to uplift communities. Mrs Dube said since coming to the farm, their productivity levels have improved.
“In the past, when the farm was manned by workers, you would constantly get distressing news that some animals had gone missing or hyenas had devoured some of the goats. But since we came to live at the farm, rarely do we hear stories that our livestock is missing or has died. We are able to do everything under one roof, and this has improved our lives,” said Mrs Dube.
She said she is also involved in the planting of commercial stockfeed, a tedious exercise, which most men would prefer to subcontract to others.
“We plant Rhodes grass and most of the time, men will not want to be involved in planting the grass because we will be planting it as if we are putting down onion, one after the other. We will be manually doing it, but generally, men would rather outsource the labour. In the process, we managed to cut down the costs,” she said.
Mrs Dube said she looks at the past with no regret, having decided to quit her office job to focus on farming. She said livestock farming has shielded her from depending on men.
“Livestock farming has made a major difference in my life. I’m not waiting for my husband to provide for me; my farming ventures are viable and make me able to take care of myself and the family. We have seriously developed; we don’t ask for financial support from anyone. We have managed to buy cars, we have a house in Bulawayo, we are paying fees for our children and are even supporting our children who ordinarily are supposed to look after us and we can do all this through farming,” she said.
Mrs Dube said due to the drought, they have even de-stocked most of their older cattle and are only left with about 50 to ensure that they have adequate feed to cover them during the drought.
“We have not lost any of our cattle. We use the indigenous fruits, which we value add to supplement the feed. We also have a silage that we expect to start opening up for the animals at the end of the month,” said Mrs Dube.
Her husband, Mr Dube, said it is her passion that has enabled them to have a thriving livestock project. — @nqotshili.
Online Reporter