Chronicle Editor
Mhlupheki Dube
ONE common lamentation in every livestock value chain study done among smallholder livestock farmers is the low figures in all critical production parameters.
A beef production enterprise like most business enterprises have critical parameters that are measured and they give indications into the performance of the sector. These include, among others, off-take rates which is nothing other than the number of animals sold by the farmer annually relative to his her entire herd; calving rates and herd mortality rates.
The obtaining trend at the moment is that these are low except for mortality. A low mortality rate is a good indicator because it means farmers are not losing animals to death. An acceptable rate is at least less than five percent annual mortality.
However, low off-take and low calving rates are a bad indication. The former indicates that farmers are not selling their animals and hence the business aspect in the enterprise is very low, while low calving rates indicate that there is poor organic growth of the herd as only a few cows have dropped calves that year as a percentage of the total number of eligible cows. This points out to a bad management practice which leads to some cows going through the season empty when they should have conceived.
The fact that these important production parameters of the livestock value chain are always reported to be poorly performing indicates to a serious gap that needs to be addressed if smallholder farmers are to commercialise their production levels. I am convinced that business development services should be an integral training aspect for our farmers. Most smallholder livestock farmers do not realise that they are in business when they are keeping their animals.
One of the key aspects of running a business is that one is selling goods or services, now if farmers are not selling their animals at levels that they should in order for the business to be viable, are they in business? If your cow has not given you a calf in three straight years and its not sick, are you in business? If you lose 10 animals to death every year against five calves you got, are you in business? These are some of the simple but vital questions that need to be addressed by business development services training or mentoring to smallholder farmers.
However, it is imperative to note that business development services training is itself not prominent in extension messages.
It is a mere topic in a training but not among the core of pillars of extension. If we are to commercialise smallholder livestock farmers one would expect to have a dedicated officer in the extension department whose mandate is developing a business approach among smallholder livestock farmers.
This is important for the proper functioning of the value chain, for example it is difficult to hold regular and competitive livestock markets at community level if that community is not selling enough animals to sustain the market.
It is also difficult to have a businessperson opening a veterinary shop at a community shop if farmers do not care about treating their animals and hence, they do not buy drugs for such routine management practices as dosing, dipping and vaccination.
Stock feed retailers will not open an outlet close to you if as farmers you would rather see animals die than buy feed to supplement them.
These business inter-linkages are the ones that constitute the value chain and farmers need to understand the linkages and their contribution in making the chain function properly. A business development strategy for smallholder livestock farmers will help the farmers understand these relationships through constant trainings and mentoring sessions of the farmers.
This however, needs to be adopted by the extension services and made one of the core pillars of extension provision if smallholder livestock farmers can even begin to take livestock farming as a serious business not to just have livestock acting as value deposit banks from which withdrawals are made at very far and wide intervals.
Uyabonga umntakaMaKhumalo.
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