Chronicle Editor
IN one of my recent articles, I lamented the existence of fly-by night experts who are powered by easy access to search engines. The search engines can provide information about any subject and the honours of checking the veracity of the information is on the user of the search engine.
There lies the problem, many people just regurgitate what they get from the internet and propagate it as gospel truth, yet experience has taught us that some of the information shared may not be accurate. I had numerous feedback from readers who expressed concern about anyone and everyone who has access to search engines parading themselves as experts in various fields including livestock production.
One reader even shared a suggestion in terms of correcting the situation and I totally agree with his submission which forms the import of this week contribution. That, anyone who provides expert advise or conducts trainings to livestock farmers should either be a recognised practicing farmer and/or registered with a professional regulatory body.
There are statutory regulatory bodies that regulate professionals in various fields be it nursing, engineering, veterinary services and so on. These are the bodies which should take centre stage in protecting farmers from half-baked self-styled experts. If a field is left unregulated, in no time you have people awarding themselves unearned titles and they use those to prey on the gullible citizenry.
The religious sector is one good example where previously esteemed titles like bishop, reverend and others have been bastardised to irrelevance! In livestock production we have witnessed some “experts” in artificial insemination (AI) who claim to have a success rate of over 70 percent in beef cattle, yet evidence on the ground shows that not many real experts get anything above 48 percent success.
Lots of unsuspecting farmers have been duped of their cash by such AI “experts” and the cows do not drop any calves. The aggrieved farmer has no means of recourse, he just has to take it on the chin for losing his money and time on an empty cow! We have seen advertised short trainings on various sectors of agricultural production and these come at a fee.
Who screens such trainers to ensure that only those trainers who are qualified and experienced to discharge that kind of training are allowed to provide the said the training. This is not just a protectionist view meant to keep knowledge exclusive and sacred but a genuine desire to ensure standards are not sacrificed by those seeking to squeeze a quick buck from unsuspecting farmers and would-be farmers.
It is against this background that this pen throws weight behind the idea of having all agriculture experts in general and livestock practitioners in particular, being affiliated to and controlled by a statutory regulatory body that will hold the standards and ethics of production sacred.
Aggrieved farmers can then seek recourse against an unscrupulous professional through the same regulatory body. It is a best practice for any field to be regulated otherwise it becomes an untamed jungle where anything and everything goes.
We then find ourselves with a proliferation of half-baked sack potato technology that left many counting losses as the sacks either produced no potato at all or they produced miniature potatoes worth nothing. Livestock farmers cannot be reduced to one giant experiment field for wannabe experts, animals are too expensive investment for that.
We need to have technologies and interventions which are only rolled out to the general livestock farmers after passing the scrutiny of a regulatory body. Many trial and error sessions have been conducted on livestock farmers and each time it is the farmer who is left to count the losses while the experimenters move over to the next victims elsewhere.
That cannot be allowed to continue, these “experts” should be made to atone for their sins and face the music if need be. Uyabonga umntaka MaKhumalo.
Mhlupheki Dube is a livestock specialist and farmer. He writes in his own capacity. Feedback [email protected] or cell 0772851275.
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