US$8b livestock sector within reach
LIVESTOCK plays a critical role in the economic development of the country – effectively contributing to agricultural outputs for improved household livelihood, economic growth and export trade and increasing incomes of rural households.
It is a source of nutritious food to the citizens, critical inputs for crop production, raw materials for the agro-processing industry, income and capital wealth creation for farmers and the investment community.
In rural areas where the majority of small-holder farmers stay and farm, livestock, especially cattle, provides draught power which allows farmers to plant bigger hectarage of crops, and therefore move towards food and nutrition self-sufficiency.
The smaller livestock component – fisheries, poultry, goats, rabbits, sheep and pigs, not only provides critical access to nutrition, but also a source of income.
They produce animal protein consumer products – red meat, poultry meat, fish and rabbit meat, table eggs, and milk essential for national food security and nutrition.
With a cattle herd of over five million, and assuming an average price of US$400 per beast, this translates to US$2 billion – and when one includes the other livestock value chain, the sub-sector on its own is almost a US$10 billion industry.
Employment opportunities upstream and downstream of the farm are also quite massive.
With the negative effects of climate change which has reduced production and productivity in the crop sector, livestock has become more prominent.
Government has done quite a lot in growing the sector.
In 2020, Government approved the Livestock Recovery and Growth Plan (2021-2025) with solid interventions to address livestock production, productivity
and profitability issues so that the sector could assume its prominent role in transforming farmers’ livelihoods.
This means that interventions by all stakeholders are now target driven.
The plan is very clear in its intention to ensure that by 2025, livestock creates an US$8 billion industry.
One of its key aspects is the strengthening of both the private and public sector extension systems so that small-holder livestock farmers have enough knowledge and skills to grow their enterprises.
As a result, private companies are increasing efforts to ensure last mile distribution for livestock health and other products, while abattoirs are doubling efforts so that small-holder livestock producers have easy access to the market.
The plan targets to address challenges of
animal health, animal genetics and animal nutrition as well as aspects that fuel low off-take, low fertility, high mortality and morbidity, low carcass weight, poor quality and inability to effectively compete on the export market.
The goal is to reduce livestock mortality for more productive livestock systems that can adapt to incessant drought events caused by climate change – blamed for surging disease outbreaks, frequent droughts and floods notorious for decimating the national herd.
Over the years, successive droughts resulted in poor nutrition, especially for grazing animals, which led to reduced fertility and calving rates of below 50 percent
against a normal of over 60 percent.
The other giant stride is the unbundling of the ministry to have a specific deputy minister responsible for livestock. This has made it possible for livestock issues to be handled separately when the need arises.
The Ministry of Lands, Agriculture, Fisheries, Water and Rural Development is implementing a number of initiatives to boost the national herd, including the livestock pass-on scheme where communal farmers are given heifers, goats and chickens to boost their livestock.
In addition, there is a nationwide programme for artificial insemination – a practice in which sperm cells are expertly collected from a bull and manually deposited into a cow’s reproductive tract.
Individual farmers can use artificial insemination to increase their animals’ genetic pool, thereby potentially decreasing effects of inbreeding such as poorer reproductive efficiency including higher mortality rates, lower growth rates and a higher frequency of hereditary abnormalities.
Government is also spearheading a programme for the local production of vaccines for tick-borne diseases to reduce the import bill and to boost productivity.
This programme is running concurrently with a US$21 million scheme to rehabilitate and construct dip tanks countrywide.
The Department of Veterinary Services has in place Government-funded disease prevention and control programmes for some of the above diseases and pests.
This focus on disease control and management which has been problematic in the past, is commendable.
The experiences of the January Disease epidemic, which reportedly killed almost 500 000 of the national herd, led to an appreciation of the importance of, not only disease surveillance, but also availability of dipping chemicals and related animal health products.
In Manicaland, cattle worth over US$1 million succumbed to January disease in the last four years.
Major diseases that are affecting the livestock industry include Foot and Mouth Disease, tick-borne diseases (theileriosis), Newcastle, lumpy skin disease, blackleg, anthrax, fowl pox, infectious bursal disease, orf, pulp kidney, brucellosis and mastitis.
Government has also contracted a local manufacturer to produce dipping chemicals – which is 42 percent cheaper – an arrangement that is improving the capacity utilisation of the local manufacturing industry, thereby creating employment and opening opportunities for regional exports in the long term.
Government is currently running field trials of the locally produced BOLVAC vaccine, which can protect animals against the disease.
Field trials are being carried out in Makoni.
Government also devised the National Integrated Ticks and Tick-Borne Disease Control Strategy comprising of scientifically proven approaches applying to the local environment to avert livestock deaths, minimise losses and maximise benefits.
This culminated in the enforcement of dipping across all farming sectors, particularly the adoption of plunge dipping for tick control, strengthening community participation and ownership of the tick and tick-borne disease control programmes.
It also saw the establishment and maintenance of infrastructure and equipment that include replacement of pour-on races with plunge dips, drilling of boreholes for water supply to dip tanks and rehabilitation of damaged dip tanks to ensure most farmers have access to the most cost-effective tick and tick-borne disease control infrastructure, among other things.
This rainy season, all cattle in Manicaland are dipping once a week, and in the event of an outbreak, the frequency of dipping will be increased to three times in two weeks using the 5-5-4-day dipping interval.
The province has about 553 plunge dip tanks.
However, there are a number of areas that are of concern – the biggest being the absence of a national traceability system. This is an important area that needs to be catered for.
Such a system will allow the Veterinary Department to know the exact number of livestock in the country. It is able to trace and track disease outbreaks, cattle movements and dipping.
But more importantly, a traceability system allows the finance sector to play a more active role in developing financing models that help the small-holder farmers to access funding for their enterprises.