Farmers urged to practise crossbreeding

Most farmers in Zimbabwe are communal farmers   as the land reform programme saw the decline in commercial farming.
Zimbabwean livestock production is dominated by small-scale farmers who are mainly faced with financial constraints to expand their businesses.

In an interview, provincial dairy specialist Mr Kululeko Dube said crossbreeding was an effective way of increasing productivity and profits as it improved hybrid figure as well as quality.
“Livestock industry in Zimbabwe mainly comprises smallholder farmers and success is determined by the genetic quality of the animals.

“There is vast shortage of pure breeds in the country and it’s expensive to maintain pure breeds as they require a lot of things like feed, vaccination  and they do not want to move about. This then creates the need to develop crossbreeds which are better adapted to the environment coupled by high performance attributes,” he said.

He challenged farmers to practise artificial insemination to select sires that would provide the improvement of their future head.

Mr Dube said local cattle were meant for meat only, hence not suitable for milk production so the crossbreeding process   would help local farmers with increased milk quality and quantity.
“Most local farmers cannot afford to have pure breeds which are both expensive to acquire and costly to maintain.

“Artificial insemination will cut the cost of importing the bull as well as the cost of feeding and raising it, so insemination becomes economical for locals who are cash-strapped as they can import the sperm.”
He said hybrids possessed qualities of both indigenous and pure breeds and their the exotic genes can utilise local resources like grass which the pure breeds cannot do.

“Feeds are exorbitant at the moment and farmers are faced with acute financial constrains; that is affecting their productivity.
“Using some of these natural methods will improve  business for local farmers without spending a lot of resources,” he said.

He called on farmers to seek advice from veterinary services if they wanted to commercialise.

“Most people are just venturing into livestock production without knowledge of doing it and in the process they lose both their money and cattle,” he said.