Chronicle Editor
OVER the years that I have been contributing to this column, I have written extensively on how we can manage our various forms of livestock, with an apparent bias towards cattle.
This week we want to look at the foundation of all these enterprises, which is the environment or the rangeland depending on the lens one uses to look. It is a common and accepted reality that smallholder communal farmers tend to let their rangelands deteriorate over time, making them less productive. We have seen this even in relatively new areas which were occupied during the land reform programme.
Some farms have suffered environmental degradation such as deforestation and even siltation of the dams. Not all new resettlement areas got neglected. The import of this week’s submission is not cast to aspersions on the necessary and essential land reform exercise but to shine the torch on things which we could do better to keep our rangelands alive and productive.
The basic principle being that every livestock enterprise especially large stock and small stock rely on a productive rangeland. Therefore, as farmers we need to realise the nexus or interlink between our management of the rangeland and the performance of our livestock production enterprise.
We need to manage our rangelands such that we keep a balance between production of unpalatable and palatable grass species, with a tilt towards the latter. Our livestock enjoys and thrives better in veldts with more palatable grasses.
One way of making sure we encourage growth and increase in palatable grasses, is to avoid overgrazing. When animals overgraze an area, they finish the palatable grasses first before going to the less palatable ones. Palatable grasses are also less prolific and to some extent “fragile”.
As farmers we also need to manage our rangelands to control bush encroachment and colonisation by invasive species. A lot of potential grazing land is lost to increase in tree species especially acacias and other thorny trees.
These most tend to happen as secondary vegetation in abandoned fallow lands or proliferate in areas with extreme ant tree cutting enforcements. Too many trees in the rangeland have two main effects, which is the suppression of growth of grasses due to the shade effects of the trees as well as making the grazing area completely inaccessible and unnavigable for animals.
I have seen some communal areas with grazing areas where no animal can even attempt to get in. Vast expanses of potential grazing land is lost through bush encroachment especially in areas with Kalahari sands type of soils which for some reason seem to support prolific growth of trees.
Colonisation of rangelands by invasive species such as Lantana camara and others also takes away huge chunks of potential grazing lands making them completely useless. Lantana camara tends to favour areas along the water ways and riverine, which incidentally usually have better growth of grasses due to the moisture conditions in the area.
There are other invasive species like senna obtusifolia which also have the same effect of stifling growth of useful grasses to a livestock farmer. It is therefore important for livestock farmers to identify these invasive species early and control them before they get out of control.
Physical removal of these is usually the cheapest and environmentally friendly method hence the need to do it before a large area is affected. The other issue which livestock farmers need to manage properly to keep the veld productive and healthy, is reducing soil erosion and gulley developments.
These tend to have down stream effect which is siltation of water bodies, be they rivers, watering pans or dams. Siltation of dams is a big challenge in communal areas and the effects are devastating to the livestock farmers as these dams dry out during the dry season presenting a serious challenge for drinking water for animals.
Siltation of dams is usually a result of poor in field conservation works and farming methods that result in the topsoil being washed down stream. Also, stream bank cultivation which is rampant in most communal areas especially in Matabeleland North Province, deposit large volumes of soil into the water bodies thereby silting them.
Most water bodies have their capacity now reduced by as high as 60 percent due to siltation which is a direct result of poor farming and soil management practices upstream.
It is thus very important for livestock farmers especially in smallholder communal areas to realise that rangelands do not become productive by accident but through deliberate management practices that are followed to prevent negative developments and promote positive ones.
Uyabonga umntaka MaKhumalo. Mhlupheki Dube is a livestock specialist and farmer. He writes in his own capacity. Feedback [email protected]/cell 0772851275
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