Building of national herd accelerated to meet demand

Precious Manomano Herald Reporter

Plans are being accelerated by Government to build the national herd to six million this year in line with the country’s agricultural growth and recovery plan to meet national demand for meat, dairy products and resuming meat exports.

This requires not only breeding more cattle, but also ensuring that none are killed by tick borne diseases.

The national herd is at 5,6 million and measures have been put in place to improve the quality of livestock including artificial insemination which involves cross breeding with semen from selected quality bulls.

Speaking during a national sensitisation meeting for upscaling fodder production, Lands, Agriculture, Fisheries, Water and Rural Development Permanent Secretary Obert Jiri said it was possible to rebuild the national herd if genetics and nutrition problems were adequately addressed.

“We continue with efforts based on our livestock recovery and growth plan to rebuild our herd,” he said.

“It’s a slow process because on the one hand we are building the herd and also eating the meat . We need to continue with the efforts and rebuilding the herd is premised on major thrust that is improving the genetics.

“Due to inbreeding over the years, beasts have become smaller and smaller.

“We need to make sure that we have good breeds so we need to improve on the breed. The second thing is nutrition. We must be able to provide feed for our livestock.’’

Prof Jiri indicated that healthy animals will definitely be able to withstand the diseases and be able to produce quality meat.

Government is expecting the livestock industry to grow to US$3,4 billion by 2025 after the sector makes positive strides in improving productivity and combating cattle mortality following the outbreak of tick borne diseases which killed almost half a million of cattle since 2016.

Several successes have so far been recorded after the Government initiated several measures to avert tick borne diseases such as manufacturing of vaccines and resuscitating and building off dip tanks.

Prof Jiri emphasised that there is also a need to promote farm feed formulations at household levels in order to continue sustaining the national herd in the winter and dry periods.

“We have to create cheaper methods of producing feed,” he said. “The pasture-based method enables us to produce our own feed as we grow them as forages and as grass. Those are methods that we must mainstream to the smallholder farming sector and the greater farming sector.

“We must teach our smallholder farmers to grow lucerne, katambora, for livestock at the household level. Farmers should be versed in feed crops production.

“We need to teach our farmers how to grow and take care of the forages and the grasses for our livestock. The production of forages and grass is critical.”

Zimbabwe Association of Dairy Farmers (ZADC) Edward Warambwa said they were doing awareness campaigns to educate farmers to grow fodder.

“We need to concentrate on fodder which is good for our livestock,” he said. “We are trying to conscientise them to grow fodder for the animals so we are telling them not to just grow grains but to grow fodder for the animals. We also want to increase milk production from the current 13 litres to 17 litres per cow.”