The Sunday News
Dumisani Nsingo, Senior Farming Reporter
A BULAWAYO-BASED agriculture consultancy firm, Health Excellence says there is a need for communal farmers to rear goats for commercial purposes so as to realise meaningful returns.
Health Excellence programmes co-ordinator Mr Dingaan Ndlovu said the lack of a viable and co-ordinated market for goats was hindering the production of this small stock in the country. He said this at the end of a two-day field look and training workshop for goat farmers conducted by the organisation on Thursday.
The workshop which attracted farmers from Bulawayo, Matabeleland South and North provinces was held in Bulawayo and the participants had the opportunity to visit some of the best goat breeders in the country Mr Chris Grant and Mr Wayne Brebner of Umguza District.
The seminar was also attended by officials from the Department of Veterinary Services, Department of Livestock Production and Development and Matopos Research Centre.
“The major challenge for goat producers is that there is no defined market for them. We are also looking at the kind of organised production, whereby goat farmers come together and lobby for their products and also help each other to improve so that they become economically viable than subsistence.
“Another challenge is that the buying price at farm level is far lower per kg (kilogramme) than what you find in the butcheries and retail outlets. We are trying to close that discrepancy so that farmers can do goats from the farm to the marketing point so as to eliminate some of the middle players in the value chain and ensure that they get the maximum returns from their products,” Mr Ndlovu.
He said there was a need to change the mindset of communal farmers to refrain from under-valuing goats.
“People have come to identify goats as a minor product but we are saying that in terms of these interactions we are going to change the mindset and have communal farmers understanding that goat production is a potential industry that can alleviate their livelihoods economically,” said Mr Ndlovu.
He said there were numerous export markets but the country’s goat population was unlikely to meet the demand. It is estimated that the country has about five million goats.
“The figures that we are still holding onto are 4,7 to 5 million goats in the country. That’s very negligible and it’s not a number that we can boast about and say we are good producers. In our training we are encouraging every breeder to have about 100 female goats so that we can be able to really talk of good quantities before we enter into the export markets,’’ he said.
He said Matabeleland South boasts of good indigenous goat breeds but it is imperative for farmers to improve their breeds to enhance the weight of their carcasses.
“You find very good goats in areas such as Plumtree, Matobo, Gwanda and Beitbridge districts, but these still need to be improved in terms of weight. So during our trainings we show farmers alternatives of upgrading their animals and to use breeds like the Kalahari Red and Boer goats so as to increase on the weight and carcass finish.
“We are not encouraging farmers to work on pure breeds because they are a bit difficult to rear. We want them to start maybe from F1 generations (first generation produced by a cross and consisting of individuals heterozygous for characters in which the parents differ and are homozygous) which means it’s about 50 percent indigenous and 50 percent exotic blood and that becomes a manageable kind of a goat and in terms of quality it would be far more improved,” said Mr Ndlovu.
