adminSamuel Kadungure Senior Agriculture Reporter
RESOURCE for poor smallholder farmers in Manicaland are accruing unmitigated livestock losses, thereby posing a serious threat to their future livelihoods and chances of escaping chronic poverty as focus on the impact of climate change on the agriculture remains inclined on crop than animal husbandry.
Research on climate change and its impact on livestock production has been sluggish and this turned out to be a major disservice to rural livestock production as farmers take inappropriate responses to climatic variability induced factors.
Livestock provide rural farmers with draught power, milk, meat, eggs and serve various cultural and social uses. In rural communities they augment crop production by providing manure, cultivation, transport, cash and food.
Without understanding and appropriate responses, the current and future climate variability can annihilate small-scale livestock keepers.
These losses are unrecoverable, and therefore condemns the rural farmers into accelerated chronic poverty. To compound this, the rural farmers are marginalised from new research, innovations and technologies in livestock production and management that proffer solutions to climatic fluctuations and extremism.
The animal census of 2012 indicates that Manicaland had an estimated 586 619 cattle, 100 462 sheep, 634 742 goats and 41 000 pigs.
However, in 2015, Chipinge, Buhera, Mutare and Makoni districts have recorded severe livestock deaths due to climate change induced factors.
Acting Provincial Livestock Production and Development Officer, Mr Joshua Zveutete, said climate change was a reality and urgent interventions were required to prevent more deaths.
“We are compiling statistics from other districts, but in Chipinge the situation is dire and reports have so far been made to Government to intervene,” said Mr Zvoutete.
More than 1 000 cattle have died in Chipinge in the past month and the surviving 32 000 cattle’s body condition has deteriorated drastically as farmers cannot afford supplementary feeds.
Mr Munyati Charuma, a farmer from Chibuwe, decried the rising cattle death toll and appealed for more water points.
“We are in serious trouble. Grazing pastures have been wiped out and we are clueless. Cattle die indiscriminately. It is a tragedy as several thousands of cattle have been lost due to water, animal feed and disease problems. Our wealth is on the verge of extinction. The entire herd risk being wiped out,” said Mr Charuma.
Veld fires have worsened shortage of grazing pastures. At least 60 000 hectares have been burnt in Manicaland.
Dr Obert Tada, of Chinhoyi University of Technology Department of Animal Production and Technology, said communal livestock production offers the country opportunity for accelerated economic growth, but climate change had induced a host of frictional factors like livestock mortality, low productivity, poor animal nutrition and disease control and lack of technical information that small-scale farmers have to deal with among other existing challenges such as poor market access and marketing infrastructure.
Dr Tada said the knowledge deficiency had vetoed progress in combating the effects of climate change in livestock production in communal areas.
“It is a reality that climate change now has a grave effect on livestock production in the country, coming as an additional factor affecting a sector already facing a host of challenges.
“Climate change has severe impacts on communal livestock production as it distorts feed supply, thermoregulatory mechanism resulting in thermal stress, new diseases due to change in epidemiology of diseases and causing many other indirect impacts.
“There is need for research to help farmers exploit the full potential of their animals. Climate change demands a balanced type of animal that thrives in stressful environment and at the moment, the potential has been severely compromised by vagaries of weather,” said Dr Tada.
Climate change, also called global warming, refers to the rise in average surface temperatures on earth. An overwhelming scientific consensus maintains that climate change is due primarily to the human use of fossil fuels, which release carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases into the air.
The gases trap heat within the atmosphere, which can have a range of effects on ecosystems, including rising sea levels, severe weather events, and droughts that render landscapes more susceptible to wildfires.
Scientists have envisioned that global temperatures rise above 20C may be beyond the bearable limit of present-day societies causing extended and widespread societal and environmental disruptions.
Dr Tada explained that global warming had two-way effects on animal production system as it directly affects the health, reproduction, nutrition of the animals resulting in poor performance, inferior product quality, outbreak of novel diseases and on the other hand indirectly affects change in soil fertility, decrease in vegetation, land degradation, desertification and decrease in production of feed stuffs.
He added that communal livestock production systems need to adjust and adopt possible strategies that reduce vulnerabilities, adding that research and innovations should revolve around indigenous breed and livestock nutrition.
“It leads to low productivity and less resistance to stress. Research should be community based so that you can find the best genotypes or straits that adapt well and produce like indigenous breeds. Farmers can improve the nutritional component of their animals by augmenting feed shortages through urea treatment of stover, sodium hydroxyl treatment of stover, silage (forage, sorghum, grass, legumes) ration formulation and development of fodder banks,” said Dr Tada.
Professor Joseph Kamuzhanje said livestock was susceptible to climate change due to alterations in the hydrological cycle, temperature balance and rainfall patterns that negatively affect growth rate, animal nutrition, milk and beef production, wool production and reproduction.
Prof Kamuzhanje, who is also Goal Zimbabwe’s acting country director, said rural communities were the worst affected as their livelihoods depend on rain-fed agriculture.
Prof Kamuzhanje said most parts of Manicaland suffer extreme rainfall fluctuations, varying from 150-450 mm per year, which subjects the rural livelihoods at the mercy of frequent drought cycles.
He said to increase the resilience of rural communities and in supporting these communities to fight the vicious cycle of drought and livelihoods loss, Goal Zimbabwe established a new initiative to improve livestock by providing adaptive and drought tolerate cattle and goat breeds in Buhera.
“While the impact of climate change on livestock is not as acute as that on crops, there are still challenges that this phenomenon has caused and which need to be addressed. This is quite critical because livestock and crop production are closely interlinked and under normal circumstances should complement each other.
“Because the rainfall season is now starting later than usual, it means that we have a longer period when it is dry. This means that there is not enough water to drink and also pastures for grazing.
“Food and water are critical for viable livestock production as they enhance the nutrition and eventually the weight of the animal at slaughter. To counter this, Goal Zimbabwe and its partners have prioritised the preparation of supplementary feed using locally available resources through processes such as ammoniation and urea treatment of stover.
“We also encourage communities to carry out pen-fattening so that the animals get adequate water and food and the farmers are able to monitor this. With reduced rain and grazing, it is important that livestock farmers are aware of the need to have the right number of animals for the resources that they have.
“This will ensure that they are not losing animals either through death or through very poor prices. The farmers should not aim at having more animals but taking good care of the ones that they have and getting good prices for them,” said Professor Kamuzhanje.
Goal Zimbabwe and Makera Cattle Company are also promoting genetic improvement through bringing pedigree bulls in Buhera where 39 bulls have been distributed in Buhera’s seven wards.
“We have also done the same for goats and we are quite aware of the need to bring in breeds that are as close as possible to what is obtaining in the communities and also to ensure that they can survive the new conditions.
“We are aware that with droughts there are higher incidences of diseases so we are collaborating with Government to rehabilitate and construct dip tanks so that there is regular dipping.
“In addition we are also drilling boreholes in order to augment water supplies. To address issues of diseases, we are working with the Department of Veterinary Services to train paravets who will be at the front line of disease detection and they then alert the relevant authorities.
“We have provided solar-powered refrigerators for cold chain purposes for the drugs and vaccines,” said Prof Kamuzhanje.
Livestock and Pastures Research specialist in the Agriculture Ministry, Dr Joe Sikhosana, said there were still knowledge gaps on how climate change affects livestock production. He added that efforts to revolutionise communal livestock production systems to contribute to a climate-smart agriculture have been sluggish.
“Livestock is sensitive to vagaries of weather and simultaneous, a contributor to the phenomenon. Climate change is real and we need to devise apt adaptive and mitigation options. Rural communities are more vulnerable because the knowledge on the relationship between climate change effects and animal health is lacking.
“Weather variations bring shocks that the rural farmers are not prepared to deal with. The natural feed is not well managed and reduced land size and wild fires compound the problem. We need breeds that match these environments,” said Dr Sikhosana.
In 2008, the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) noted, among the direct effects of climate change, high temperatures and changes in rainfall patterns, translating in an increased spread of existing vector-borne diseases and macro parasites of animals as well as the emergence and spread of new diseases.
The increased ambient temperature and concurrent changes in heat exchanges causes heat stress which influences growth, reproduction performance, milk production, wool production, animal health, condition and welfare.
Heat stress reduces animal feed intake, resulting in poor growth.
Indigenous cattle have high heat tolerance.
Unavailability of water is another common constraint and insufficient to support healthy animal growth and performance.
Water constraints in Manicaland are prevalent during the dry season, and animals have to walk long distances daily to access the precious liquid. Water points in the province’s communal areas are also limited and swarmed by large numbers of animals, culminating in high chances of spreading diseases and land degradation. This problem is envisaged to become more compelling with the continued perpetuation of climate change.
Wetland protection may be one of the strategies to ease on water shortage in rural areas. There is also need for thorough indigenous livestock species selection for higher productivity. Indigenous breeds have better chances to reproduce and survive dry periods of feed scarcity and water shortage, and their feeding behaviour has both browsers and grazers have been compatible with harsh environmental conditions.
Online Reporter