Govt urged to craft policies on goat breeding

ACTIONAID Zimbabwe has called on government to come up with policies that will ensure that there is breeding of small livestock, including goats as the sub sector was lagging behind in terms of growth.

Goat breeders have often complained over the lack of a national policy to promote growth of the sub-sector.

In an interview yesterday, ActionAid spokesperson Kevin Maenzanise said: “The absence of a national policy on the goat sub-sector has hampered its development in Zimbabwe’s agriculture sector; this is according to a goat value chain research undertaken by the value chain alliance for livestock upgrading and empowerment.

“The research points to that due to the low attention given to the goat value chain at the national and local levels, small and medium goat producers have found it increasingly difficult to attain commercial levels of production.”

Maenzanise said there was need to review existing regulations such as the certification of goat meat, the issuance of animal movement permits, and the provision of adequate animal health facilities like dip tanks to address the bottlenecks stifling the growth of the livestock sector.

“This is evidenced by the absence in most districts, and non-functionality of goat dipping facilities resulting in farmers not dipping their animals and as a result this affects their health and results in high mortality in the value chain.”

Value chain project team leader Newton Chari said they were also facilitating the establishment of goat producer business associations to address an array of challenges along the value chain. The project is funded by government and the European Union.