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Monalisa Chikwengo
THE Government and development partners’ interventions in livestock production are bearing fruit as goat and pig productivity and production increased, thanks to imports of top-quality genetics under the Zimbabwe Agricultural Growth Programme (ZAGP) in 2020.
The ZAGP imported top-quality genetics from South Africa under the Value Chain Alliance for Livestock Upgrading and Empowerment (VALUE) to increase smallholder farmers’ goat and pig breeds.
In an interview with The Herald, ZAGP communications and policy specialist Mr Kevin Maenzanise said the farmers who purchased the top-quality genetics had since testified to improved production.
“The decision to import genetics in 2020 was inspired by the fact that most small and medium-scale producers were using outdated and low performing genetics, which posed challenges in terms of birth weight, feed conversion rate, number of piglets born and the time taken to reach slaughter weights among others,” said Mr Maenzanise.
Mr Maenzanise said the project made a positive impact on the economic opportunities of 11 000 small-scale goat and pig farmers who were currently stuck at different sub-optimal stages of commercialisation and growth.
“Already farmers have been mobilising resources to undertake importation of Grand Parent, Parent and first generation (F1) stock to augment the breeding programme,” added Mr Maenzanise.
VALUE’s main aim was to expand and modernise the value chains to offer livestock and meat products that are safe and of high quality along the production corridors that feed into Zimbabwe’s two largest meat markets of Harare and Bulawayo.
A renowned pig producer from Mashonaland West, Mrs Letwinner Nyagano, who was part of the breeding programme gave her testimony on how the top-quality genetics improved production.
“Since replacing my old stock with the superior genetics imported by the ZAGP VALUE project, the performance of my unit is above the average industry benchmark,” she said.
“Litter size, for instance, increased from an average of 10 to 13, with birth weights also increasing from 1, 3 to 1, 8 kilogrammes while the weeks to marketing have been reduced by two, from 22 to 20 with the same cold dressed mass of between 55 and 58 kilogrammes,” she continued.
ZAGP VALUE is working with the Pig Industry Board (PIB) and other players in the industry such as Bradford Farming to undertake further importations of genetics from South Africa.
Online Reporter