Dairy production: The future is in smallholder farmers

20 Apr, 2014 - 00:04 0 Views
Dairy production: The future  is in smallholder farmers

The Sunday News

Dairy cowsFarming Issues Mhlupheki Dube
I HAD an opportunity to visit Gokwe dairy farmers and I left the area with a full conviction that given adequate support, smallholder dairy farming can contribute significantly both to the farmer’s personal development and as well as the economic growth.
Smallholder dairy farming is quite pregnant with opportunities for development but it has been a victim of incomplete and disintegrated support which has addressed some of the challenges leaving others alive and hoping the project will live and not naturally either die or limp forever.

Also these projects tend to have inadequate numbers of farmers which then makes transaction costs high because they are not able to leverage on the economies of scale.

However, farmers in Gokwe seem to be doing quite well to the extent that local demand cannot absorb all their milk and they are now supplying a commercial processor in Kwekwe.

These farmers ought to be applauded for demystifying dairy farming which for a long time has been regarded as a preserve of large scale commercial farmers.

The farmers have adopted and are implementing all the necessary technologies for dairy farming. Among such technologies is silage making. In fact it was humbling to see and hear the people articulating production practices for such fodder crops as giant Rhodes grass, silver leaf, lablab and velvet beans with such clarity and eloquence that can make most animal science post graduate students green with envy.

I am one person who was beginning to be convinced that I might not live to witness mindset changes among smallholder farmers with regards to adopting proven good agricultural practices such as silage making but I am thrilled to testify that I witnessed the transformation in action as farmers chopped mature yellow maize with silage cutters and threw the pieces into the silage pit. Maize is generally a staple crop for most Zimbabweans and thus most smallholder farmers find it unimaginable that a person can grow maize, let it mature and then chop it for livestock feed.

To me witnessing smallholder farmers in rural Gokwe going that mile just to prepare feed for their livestock in particular their dairy animals gave me a reassurance that yes we CAN do it. It certainly is a protracted struggle to make smallholder farmers unlearn some old practices in order to learn new ones but it is possible.

However, smallholder dairy farmers seem to face one common challenge which is proving to be a major limiting factor in their production capacity. This is the quality of the breeds that they are using. They use mostly cross breeds which have the resilience they need for the harsh climatic environment in their areas but most of them are not first generation cross.

They are usually third or fourth generation crosses which have lost all the hybrid vigour that is associated with first generation crosses.

This inevitably translates into poor production traits with low milk yields being easily the evident one.

A dairy cow should be able to yield up to 25 litres of milk per day but small holder dairy farmers record around eight to 10 litres per animal per day. It is therefore critical and prudent for government and other players to support small holder dairy farmers with right high yield breeds.

This can be easily done through introducing bulls into the dairy cows so that new genetics is infused into the already existing gene pool.

Small holder dairy farmers also need to be careful when buying dairy cows as some have been sold old cull cows which are almost at the end of their breeding lifespan. Farmers should engage services of a livestock specialist to assess the age and condition of the cows they are buying. Admittedly there are few dairy cow breeders in the country and as such there is usually a scramble for the few cows on offer but that is not a reason for one to wash down his/her hard earned cash.

Dairy cows do not come cheap as they cost anything above $1 500 each. In parting this pen wishes to reiterate that smallholder dairy farming has the potential to evacuate communal farmers from the poverty zone as the farmer is assured of a monthly income of about $300/animal for the seven milking months. Let’s try it out.

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