Rangelands reclamation important for posterity of livestock industry

OFTEN, I get to interact with smallholder livestock farmers in their different localities. I get to put my boots on the ground and listen to the issues that worry them in their everyday livestock management practices. An issue that keeps coming up is that livestock farmers are running out of grazing land. This is almost knee-jerkingly attributed to expanding human population which translates to an increase in demand for arable land as well as land for constructing homesteads.

This cannot be disputed as a contributing factor to shrinking grazing lands, but it would be too simplistic to take this singular variable as the only important component contributing to loss of grazing lands. There are other factors that need to be considered as well and chief among these is rangeland degradation itself. There is a very large portion of grazing lands that have been rendered unusable over the years in most parts of the country and this is taking its toll on the general carrying capacity of our rangelands.

Most people think of rangeland degradation in terms of highly eroded and overgrazed areas that degenerates into gullies and other soil erosion induced topographic effects. However, one other very important rangeland degradation effect that has a serious bearing on the cattlemen life, is bush encroachment. This is defined as the increase in woody species in comparison to the herbaceous species. That is an increase in tree components as compared to grass components of your rangeland. In fact, bush encroachment is one of the most extensive forms of degradation of rangelands in arid and semi-arid regions.

A significant portion of the rangelands is eaten up by bush encroachment and becomes unusable to most cattlemen. In fact, I posit here that most districts of Matabeleland North Province have their rangelands suffering more from effects of bush encroachment rather than the want of grazing land itself. There is simply so much woody species in the communal rangelands it suffocates the herbaceous growth and impact negatively on the general carrying capacity of the rangelands.

Bush encroachment leads to a reduction in green grass biomass and consequently a reduction of grazing capacity of the rangeland. Poor grazing management strategies including over stocking and suppression of bushfires, are the major anthropogenic causes of bush encroachment. Over stocking results in overgrazing such that very little grass is allowed to grow and establish itself to full maturity. This will cumulatively result in the disappearance of the palatable grasses and increase in unpalatable ones.

Bush fires unfavoured as they are and rightfully so, have a positive effect of controlling bush encroachment. This is well documented in various literature. Actually, a conversation with older members of the communal society will reveal that their rangelands started experiencing serious bush encroachment challenges following compliance to protracted government messaging and policy enforcement against veld fires.

This is by no means an advocation for use of veld fires. My submission therefore is that Government extension should consider bush encroachment prevention and control as an important extension support to livestock farmers. There is a huge portion of land that could be rehabilitated for use by livestock farmers by simply reversing the effects of rangeland degradation such as bush encroachment.

Also, some formerly arable land that is now left to fallow because it is no longer productive, can be rehabilitated and revegetated into use, by applying deliberate management practices. Such bush encroachment control methods as simple debushing can be instituted in the affected rangelands with a possible positive trajectory in livestock carrying capacity.
Something simply have to be done to halt and reverse bush encroachment in most communal area as it is the easier variable to control regarding the shrinking rangelands. It is not possible to stop population growth as long as humanity exists, yet the land is not elastic.

Population growth will inevitably result in demand for land for human settlement, further eating into the already shrinking rangelands. It is therefore time to seriously consider rehabilitating and reclaiming our rangelands so that we open up those areas that are currently unusable because of bush encroachment. Posterity of the smallholder communal livestock sector will depend on how we reclaim and rehabilitated severely degraded and encroached rangelands.

Uyabonga umntaka MaKhumalo.

Mhlupheki Dube is a livestock specialist and farmer. He writes in his own capacity. Feedback [email protected]/ cell 0772851275.