The Sunday News
LAST week, the Zimbabwe International Trade Fair (ZITF) Company announced the postponement, once again, of their event in Bulawayo to next month due to Covid-19.
The premier international annual event has been on ice since last year. A number of sectors have obviously been negatively affected by the continued postponement of the ZITF event and one such industry is the agricultural industry in general and the livestock production sector in particular. One prays that the newly proposed dates of the event towards the end of September will hold if the Covid-19 situation improves.
This is one event which many people in the various production sector of the industry live for. It provides a good marketing platform for various products produced but it also provides a good searching platform for various buyers who are looking for certain items.
The agriculture sector is always awash with new products and innovations that are showcased at such platforms and farmers will be willing to try them out. On the livestock production side we look forward to exhibitions of different breeds in the industry, be they cattle, goats, sheep or poultry. This is the place where farmers get to witness the breeds presented in their best possible shape.
Right now there is a market crazy about a certain poultry breed whose marketing strengths among others, is its dual purpose use, that is meat as well as egg production. The ZITF will obviously provide the platform for would be producers to have a glimpse into this new wonder bird which has injected a new production euphoria in the poultry sector, not that Zimbabwe is immune to craze waves of production.
We are reminded here of the sack potato production craze and those birds which captured the nation’s production interests and suddenly we had zvihuta experts advertising profusely! This is not by any means meant to cast aspersions on the poultry breed which is topping the charts but just to bring out the humour out of the agriculture sector production timelines!
On a serious note, like many other livestock farmers, I am looking forward to the opening of the ZITF, just to appraise myself of the production trends. What are the emerging breeds in the various livestock sectors? Who are the new kids on the block in the stock feed manufacturing sector and how are their products fairing in the market? What are the new innovations and inventions in the livestock sector? Have we domesticated production or manufacturing of some important agricultural products and equipment?
Domestication of production of some equipment is very important for the growth and performance of the agriculture sector because it makes these items readily available and affordable or at least they should be. I have been in the market looking for battery cages for layer production and it is disappointing to note that such simple equipment is not readily available, at least from the known agricultural outlets in the country.
You only get middlemen willing to supply you and obviously after ordering these from countries like South Africa.
This naturally pushes the costs up yet these are simple cages which any fabricator worth his or her salt should be able to produce.
One would think with such a big and continuously growing poultry sector, such equipment like battery cages would be available even from suppliers or either layers chicks or point of lay chickens. In fact, as one is able to buy poultry production equipment such as feed troughs and drinkers from chicks and feed suppliers, so should be the case with battery cages for layers.
ZITF event helps farmers in providing important information and linking up with producers or suppliers of products like the layer battery cages I have just described. It is against this background that we pray for Covid-19 situation to ease so that this important trade event goes through and farmers are able to get solutions to some of the pertinent production challenges.
Uyabonga umntaka MaKhumalo. Mhlupheki Dube is a livestock specialist and farmer. He writes in his own capacity.
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