The Sunday News
Mhlupheki Dube
INTERACTING with livestock service providers at the Zimbabwe Agricultural Show held last week in Harare and many other livestock platforms such as the national bull sale has left me convinced that some major product manufacturers and service providers need to adjust their settings to suit smallholder livestock producers.
Some product manufacturers are configured and primed to supply and deal with large-scale livestock producers such that their services become inaccessible to smallholder livestock producers.
One stock feed manufacturer produces a brilliant product which can be mixed with hay or stover to feed livestock.
This product which I obviously cannot mention by name, is useful for beneficiation of hay bales and stover as it increases the crude protein in these. However, the product comes in 50kg bags only with a cost of close to $400.
How then can a farmer with a small herd of say 10 to 15 animals afford such a product?
These farmers need this product as well but the packaging is prohibitive because it is designed with large-scale commercial livestock farmers who command large heads.
I have suggested to representatives of these companies at these shows like I do now, that they should consider making smaller packages of this product such that it can be found in small packs as well.
This means the farmer with 15 animals can opt for and afford the small packs.
This situation of producing and packaging products for large-scale commercial farmers is not only peculiar to stock feed manufacturers but almost all other livestock accessories and equipment.
An example is a company selling ear tags for livestock identification and these are packaged in packs with a hundred units.
Again this forces a farmer with a head of 20 to buy an extra 80 ear tags that he/she does not need and the cost will be punitive for a farmer of this production size.
What is wrong with packaging the same ear tags to smaller packs of say five to 10 units?
One can even talk about veterinary drugs and chemicals and the same problem exists. Some vaccines for example come in 50 or 100 doses. This means the vaccine is enough to inoculate 50 or 100 animals and a vaccine once it is opened you have to use all of it or you throw away the remainder.
So a smallholder livestock farmer with 15 head and wishes to vaccinate his/her animals against whatever disease will have to buy a 50 doses vaccine just to throw away the remaining 35 doses! It’s a waste of the farmer’s resources just because of packaging which did not anticipate business from upcoming farmers.
Even in the equipment sector the same challenge exists where manufacturers overlook possible demand from smallholder producers who may need to use their equipment as well.
I saw a battery cage production unit for layers on display and it was a brilliant piece of equipment. The unit on display was said to have a capacity of holding up to 100 layers. Admittedly this is smallholder level but I think even small units can be made to take say 50 birds which urban farmers with limited space in their high density homes can use.
It’s not only for want of space but even the cost is reduced because buying say 100 point of layers is not a small cost especially for beginners who may have capital limitations.
The battery cage units are actually brilliantly fitted with feed troughs and automatic drinkers. I therefore, plead that agrochemical manufacturers, stock feed manufacturers, and agric equipment manufacturers should consider reconfiguring their production settings such that they also include smallholder farmers in the design of their products.
It is important to remind these producers that smallholder livestock farmers in Zimbabwe hold close to 90 percent of the national herd.
This means by not properly packaging to suit this market, you are packaging yourself out of business!
Let’s ensure that all our agricultural products are designed to also accommodate smallholder farmers. This is the importance of product search so as to ascertain the acceptance and suitability of your product in the market.
Uyabonga umntakaMaKhumalo.
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