Online Reporter
Judith Phiri
Business Reporter
MATOPOS Research Institute has been commended for its innovation through the use of insects as alternative protein source (mealworms) as well as using locally available resources such mopane and acacia leaves to formulate feed for livestock.
As the demand for animal feed continues to rise, more research is being carried out to find alternative feed due to limited availability of natural resources, continued climate change and food-feed-fuel competition.
So far, the mealworm starter, grower and finisher diets were registered as feed for poultry in Zimbabwe under Farm Feeds. Another ground-breaking innovation they developed a multi-nutrient block for ruminant animals the frass blocks are being given to goats and sheep.
Speaking at a recent familiarisation tour to gain an appreciation of the specialised institute’s innovation, Ministry of
Lands, Agriculture, Fisheries, Water and Rural Development Permanent Secretary Professor Obert Jiri commended the work being done by scientists.
“What we have seen here for the feed trials and all the experiments that they are doing, it is very fantastic. This is the base of our agriculture, from here we know that we can have new feed formulations and we can then commercialise from this,” he said.
“Of course some will fail at the commercialisation stage so not all this will go to commercialisation but some will succeed and that is the nature of science. When something succeeds from science we know that it’s tried and tested also proven and we will have confidence on it.”
He said such feed formulations were critical considering periods such as the El Niño-induced drought where most of the livestock was lost due to lack of feed.
Matopos Research Institute principal research officer, Ms Primrose Nkomboni who is a nutritionist said it was their mandate to formulate feed using locally available resources.
“These are resources the farmers can easily access. When we identify the resources we take them to the laboratory for testing. We would be testing for crude protein, fibre and other nutrients, after that we then formulate our feed for example lucerne, mopane or black soldier fly based pallets.”
Bongani Ndlovu