‘Goats can be healthy pension fund’

Thembinkosi Khumalo, Sunday News Reporter
ZIMBABWE has always been open for business, it is a matter of thinking outside the box and being innovative.

Once you wait for the next person to open doors for you, you will die waiting. As a country that practices more of agriculture, Mrs Sifiso Agbetorwoka and her team tapped into what the country is known for-agriculture.

In a bid to create employment and educate the public about the importance of agriculture, she has been hosting conferences and workshops on goat breeding.

The practice, which she started in 2018 was somewhat an offspring of horticulture at their Bulembe Estates at Fort Rixon, on the outskirts of Bulawayo. Mrs Agbetorwoka got the inspiration to venture into goat breeding when drought struck in 2018.

“We were just crop farmers, then drought disturbed us, but just because we loved farming, we looked for different ways of farming that did not require a lot of water. My husband then came across a YouTube video of a guy from Uganda who spoke highly of goat breeding and how it can change the economy of a nation, we did not hesitate to give it a try and here we are now.

“One of the biggest challenges in our early stages of breeding was the mortality of our goats. We lost quite a number of goats and this was because we really did not know much about goats and our information was derived from the wrong sources because we came into breeding thinking that it is easy to keep and breed goats.

If you move your goats you are bound to lose some but now, we know that there are ways you can minimise that from happening. Goats can be a healthy pension fund. If someone would start breeding goats now, in five years they can have a very good annual pension fund for life and for generations to come. This is because of the way goats multiply.”

From more than 200 goats, she has four breeds. She sells to individuals and abattoirs.

“I have not reached the number that I want in order to start selling to other farmers. But, in the near future I will be expanding my market to more abattoirs and goat breeding companies,” she said.