The Sunday News
ONE of the established but silent cultures within medium to large scale livestock producers, is that of pride which more often than not borders on outright arrogance. When you are in the company of big guys in livestock production, especially big time ranchers, it doesn’t take you long to feel small.
They somehow exude a superiority pheromone which quickly arranges those present in the rightful pecking order of importance! It is a very harmless culture when you get used to the industry, in fact it is meant to inspire you to aspire to be where the big guns are.
It is just a territorial marking instinct and you will do yourself a good favour by respecting the pecking order, for example, you don’t want to be bidding against big players and you are not really known in their circles and your pocket is not that deep.
They will bid you over the cliff and you may not like an auction thereafter. While this culture of provide is mostly nothing other than social posturing, some big-time livestock farmers tend to carry it even to their farms and his or her ranch becomes a lion’s den where no one is welcome at all under what circumstance.
This is unfortunate.
This week however, I wish to exalt a colleague of mine and a prominent Simmental stud breed, Mr Obert Chinhamo.
He farms on the peripheries of Bulawayo but under Umzingwane district. Your story about Simmental will not be complete if his name is not mentioned, in fact if you are in Matabeleland and you are in livestock circles your paths ought to have crossed already or else you are in the wrong path!
The objective of this article is to celebrate his approach and contribution to livestock industry in general and to the Simmental breed in particular. I wish to highlight one apparent characteristic which stands out about Mr Chinhamo in sharp contrast to the general culture of commercial livestock producers that I described in my preamble above. He is a chap so much willing to share innovations and experiments that he has done or is doing at his farm and is producing good results.
I have been to his farm and each time there are people walking in to witness and learn different aspects of livestock production. It could be pasture development, silage making and all, people come in droves to learn at his farm and this he does for free. I have seen him sharing even on such platforms as Facebook different things that he is trying out at his farm including pictures of his cows, calves and bulls. It is my contention that his ability to share information about various aspects of production on his farm, is a best practice that should be emulated by other successful and upcoming livestock farmers for prosperity of the industry in general.
I will confess in this article that I got to know about an important high performing windmill product called Mabiko, from Mr Chinhamo sharing on some social platform we share. I wish this kind of a “big picture” view could be adopted by all livestock players so that we share new innovations, working trials and all for the prosperity of the livestock industry.
The success of the livestock industry will not come through a few oases of success but through recruitment and empowering all those that desire to participate in this interesting industry. Also, one thing you will not miss when you interact with Mr Chinhamo is his passion for the livestock industry growth particularly Simmental breed growth.
In that regard, he markets and sells his bulls and heifers across the country and there a lot of happy customers across the country, in fact as recent as two months ago I met a very happy customer with Mr Chinhamo’s bull in Masvingo!
I therefore implore all other big time and upcoming livestock producers to have the passion, share the passion as well as the important production information just as this farmer does so that the livestock industry can grow. The industry is as strong as the combined effort of its individual members who are working and sharing critical knowledge and information.
Uyabonga umntakaMaKhumalo. Feedback [email protected]/ 0772851275
