adminFarming Issues
I USUALLY get opportunities to visit a number of irrigation schemes that are dotted around Matabeleland region and witness great efforts that are being made by Government and its development partners in trying to uplift crop production levels and inevitably the livelihoods of the communities involved. However, what seems to be common in most irrigation schemes I have visited is that they are only focused on crop production with nothing at all being done to promote livestock production.
Where minimum thought has been put around livestock production one sees disused and dilapidated cattle handling pens that are hardly noticeable as they are submerged in a thorny thicket with absolutely no evidence of human activity around them.
One wonders why such critical infrastructure can be left to ruin in the middle of a community whose source of livelihood and undisputable economic driver is livestock production. I think the thought process around the essence and use of irrigation schemes in Matabeleland has to be revisited and a complete package developed so that irrigation schemes are not viewed one dimensionally but with a holistic mind of addressing a communal household needs.
It is the submission of this article that a lot can be done within the irrigation schemes around livestock production practices but this needs to be internalised and institutionalised at Government level especially in extension services.
Most irrigation schemes if not all have demonstration plots that half the time are lying idle or are used for personal use by extension agents yet these could be also used for demonstrating to farmers how some important fodder crops are grown.
I have written extensively about fodder crops and their importance in supplementing animals and therefore I will not labour this subject in this submission.
The cattle handling pens at irrigation schemes if available can be used for demonstrating good animal husbandry practices by the extension workers. These are actually useful and appropriate training facilities in animal production.
Most of the cattle handling facilities are designed for pen fattening animals and why extension personnel are not promoting and aiding feedlots within their schemes remains a mystery.
There a number of communal livestock producers who would like to add value to their animals by pen feeding them before they are sold and there is no better facilities than the feedlots that are lying in a state of derelict in the irrigation schemes for those that are nearer irrigation schemes.
This submission therefore calls for powers that be to seriously consider factoring in the livestock production component in their irrigation schemes and stop having a linear one way type of view in agricultural production.
Irrigation schemes for example produce massive quantities of stover from crops such as maize and wheat yet no efforts are made around stover treatment for farmers and it is not unusual to find a hip of maize stover up in smoke when animals are starving.
Talking of a holistic view of agricultural production local businesses also need to wake up and smell the coffee as they say.
One finds businesses that are neighbouring irrigation schemes not responsive to the needs of the irrigators.
Why would businesspeople around a giant 400 and something hectare scheme in Silalabuhwa fail to stock up agrochemicals and related supplies that these farmers need in the scheme.
Farmers have to travel to Bulawayo which is almost 170 kilometres away to buy these agrochemicals and inputs.
Items like fertiliser, seeds, pesticides, protective clothing and knapsack sprayers can be very useful to plot holders at irrigation schemes yet businesspeople crowd each other around cooking oil and matches.
One cannot even find simple dosing remedies and dipping chemicals in their locality let alone common treatment medicines for animals such as long acting antibiotics. Is it that all these livestock farmers in rural areas do not treat and dip their animals or they buy their supplies in town.
Why are the local businesspeople failing to bridge the supply gap for such important agrochemicals in their communities?
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