The Sunday News
Farming Issues Mhlupheki Dube
THE story in last week’s Sunday News about the emerging partnership between Mangwe Farmers Association and Bulawayo Abattoirs really needs all the applause and standing ovation we can give. Coming as it did in the same paper where I was brutally grinding my axe against the ambivalent and lukewarm approach of some farmers’ unions to matters affecting their membership, it gave a refreshing and reinvigorating hope of huge possibilities awaiting to be exploited.
I just hope this one will be pursued to its logical end so that the article is not reduced to some image building publication for the involved organisations.
I have no doubt in my mind that the project is exactly what the doctor ordered. Just to refresh some of the readers and for the benefit of those that might have missed the story, Mangwe Farmers Association was reported to have engaged in a partnership with Bulawayo Abattoirs, one of the leading abattoirs in this country, to supply quality bulls to smallholder communal farmers.
Farmers will either pay in cash or in exchange with two or so inferior animals from their herd. The bulls were quoted to cost as low as $1 000.
If this price is real it will be a great bargain for the farmers as bulls generally range around $4 000. Also every farmer worth his salt needs no second persuasion about buying a bull because they know that a bull holds the key to improving the productivity of the herd. This is more for smallholder farmers who are so keen to improve the quality of their herds in terms of the breeds, there is no better way than introducing a bull into the herd.
This pen would like to thank Bulawayo Abattoirs in advance for this great initiative as it indicates that they understand the whole value chain in the livestock industry and that for them to slaughter and sell good carcasses their producers ought to have good breeds of animals.
I wish all big players in this industry would tone down on the capitalistic exploitative approach and take steps in developing their value chain. By big players I am not just referring to abattoirs or white commercial farmers but also indigenous commercial farmers.
There are a lot of indigenous cattle ranchers some of them with more than 400 head of good quality animals but they do not seem to extend a hand to help develop their neighbours.
Some farmers are so mean they can’t even lend their bulls to their neighbours, in fact they could condomise their bulls if such a technology was developed just to make sure their bulls do not sire any offspring to their neighbours!
Really what do you lose if from your 10 bulls you lend two or even one to your neighbours, nothing. Actually the net effect of putting your bulls to your neighbours’ herds is that the general complexion of the animals around you will improve and you now have a chance to buy good animals from your neighbours.
To the farmers I say let’s buy the bulls and improve our herds both in productivity and in quality. Some of your cows go for three years without dropping a calf simply because you do not have a bull to service them when they are on heat.
Avoid easy options when it comes to livestock. Some people have been contributing money to some organisations which claimed that they get animals after a certain period (a year or so), three years down the line I am yet to meet anyone who have benefited.
Chances are people were scammed just like the pyramid schemes. People need to be serious about their money, how on earth do you join a street scheme claiming that you will get cattle in the end?
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