daniel chigunwe
Obert Chifamba
Agri-Insight
COMING hot on the heels of the January disease holocaust, which claimed close to a million cattle, reports that the country’s beef off-take percentage is increasing are somewhat unsettling, given that the said cattle sales are happening as sellers move to mitigate a potentially desperate situation.
Percentage off-take refers to the number of cattle sold specifically for slaughtering.
Logically, the more the off-take increases the more the per capita consumption rises too and per capita consumption is prone to be affected by these off-take changes.
Most of these cattle sales are happening because there is no other option for the desperate farmers, who ordinarily would have been happy to keep their herds intact or even add more and not vice-versa.
Chief livestock officer in the Department of Livestock Production Development, Mr Wisdom Gunzvenzve, recently summed it up when he revealed that many cattle producers were selling their cattle goaded by the fear that they may end up suffering losses due to the El Nino-induced drought that plagued the 2023/24 farming season.
Mr Gunzvenzve hinted that cattle sales had risen by 25 percent from eight percent in 2022 to 10 percent in 2023, with facts on the ground suggesting that the sales are purely an attempt to mitigate potential losses in the wake of the drought that ravaged both crops and livestock.
Government’s move to decentralise cattle sales could also be part of the reason sales are rising but such sales usually have this tendency of going almost unnoticed, unless someone is clearly trying to establish a trend.
Justifiably, farmers can always argue that their decisions are being influenced by the uncertainty of what the future holds for them in terms of the availability of feeds for their animals, hence the push to dispose of part of their stocks while they are still in better shape.
Most of them are acting guided by the ‘once bitten, twice shy’ idiom, after going through similar drought situations and losing cattle to poverty deaths.
For once, we can safely argue that the farmers are acting as real business people who dispose of one or two animals to save the majority from a possible demise.
It is, however, the impact these actions are leaving on the national drive to re-build the national herd to its yesteryear levels that are worrisome.
The efforts Government is currently making to assist cattle farmers build their herds may easily come to nought if this trend continues unabated.
Farmers selling off some of their animals must also remember to spare the productive group — heifers and those used for draught power.
There should be efforts to ensure the future of the national herd is not tampered with to levels that will make it impossible for the country to meet its target of 11 million cattle by 2030.
The moment farmers do random selling and dispose of heifers and draught animals, then they are setting up the country for stagnation in terms of the herd’s growth and food insecurity for those that rely on animal draught power respectively.
The decision to cull animals needs to be done wisely lest it becomes the farmers’ biggest undoing in their efforts to contribute to the national herd re-building and the drive to consolidate gains made so far in making the nation food and nutrition secure.
In fact, the situation is no longer one that should be dealt with on an ‘each man for himself and God for us all’ basis but must be tackled holistically.
The bulk of the national herd is made up of cattle owned by individual farmers put together, which makes it critical for everyone to make it their business to fight and save cattle from poverty deaths.
It is refreshing to note that Government has since initiated many programmes towards that cause but the initiatives need the buy-in of all stakeholders to make the desired impression fast.
Of course the efforts by the Government and other stakeholders have started paying off with the national beef herd growing by 1,3 percent from 5 642 400 cattle in 2022 to 5 718 523 in 2023.
The good thing is that this milestone has been happening simultaneously with decreasing national cattle deaths, as mortalities dropped to six percent in 2022 and 4, 6 percent in 2023.
This is a clear demonstration of how the situation has been turning around for the better before El Nino arrived to send everything topsy-turvy once again.
It is now necessary for the nation to go back to the drawing board once more just like it did for tick-borne disease outbreaks and come up with urgent measures to ensure the situation does not spiral out of control, come the hottest and driest time of the year when there will be very little forage for cattle to turn to.
Although the Government has the hay, fodder and silage programmes running, it may not be able to take care of every farmer’s needs at the most desperate hour leaving them with no option but to sell.
That being said, the farmers should not be just observers in this matrix — they must initiate some form of intervention before looking out for help, which should come as a compliment to what they would be doing towards saving their herds.
The problem in most cases is that some farmers tend to leave their fate in the hands of the Government and development agencies, which dilutes the momentum the nation had picked, as it pushes to transform agriculture from subsistence to commercial production.
Common sense demands that business people must not watch threats to their interests unfolding but should act to avert disasters and always have plan B in place in case situations go out of hand.
And the fact that most farmers are now transitioning from farming just for the sake to doing it for business, requires them to guard their enterprises jealously and make sure nothing — climate or man-made, derails them.
Livestock farmers must make it a tradition to always harvest and stock feeds for the dry season given that climate change challenges have been around for a while and everyone should appreciate that.
This habit of waiting to react to a problem does not reflect a business acumen expected from people participating in this commercial trajectory our agriculture is taking.
At this point in time, we do not expect to find a farmer claiming ignorance of what he/she is expected to do to save her crops or livestock from the vagaries of weather associated with the prevailing climate change problem.
One exciting dimension to the decreasing cattle mortalities that the Department of Livestock Production Development has brought into play is the promotion of improved animal husbandry practices and improved animal health management, especially through the effective control of tick-borne diseases that are contributing significantly to the current stabilising situation.
What this means is that farmers can continue upholding the practices that brought about the good results while making sure they accord proper attention to livestock nutrition matters.
Online Reporter