Showing posts with label Africa. Show all posts

Crossbreeding Has Improved My Cattle Farm

Posted by Unknown in Africa, Breeding and Pregnancy, Cattle and Livestock, Cross Breeding, Success Stories, Uganda on Tuesday, 14 May 2013

A farm hand tends some of the cattle on Titus Buatre 's farm. Photo by Felix Warom Okello.

When I started with four goats, one of them a Boer goat for cross-breeding purposes, I did not even imagine that this farming activity would expand to enable me meet most of my needs.

I am in position to pay school fees for my children—three at university and three still in secondary school, afford a good diet at home, and even look after other dependents, among others.

Meat and milk

I am Titus Buatre, 55 years old, an animal farmer, from Andewa Village, Riki Parish in Oluko Sub-county, six kilometres east of Arua Town. By the end of last year, I had 120 goats and 50 heads of cattle, from where I get meat and milk.

I sell the milk in 10-litre jerrycans, each at Shs35,000. So, in a day, I earn Shs70,000. Though most of my herd is made up of dairy cows, I occasionally sell off some cattle.

Depending on the size, the price ranges from Shs500,000 to Shs800,000. Last year, I sold four cows. For the goats, the lowest price is from Shs70,000 to Shs80,000. However, I also sell to NGOs that have programmes that distribute the goats to farmers.

In this case, I will sell each goat at Shs130,000.

To acquire my first cattle, I took a salary loan that was repayable in two years. On top of that I added some money from crop farming to buy seven heads of cattle.

From that number, there are now 50 heads of cattle, from which I am able to get 15 to 20 litres of milk daily. I am able to buy medicines to treat them. I have four types-Ankole, Zebu, Boran and Friesian crossbreeds.

Economic value

Among these, there is a 250-kilogramme bull, which I use for cross breeding. I attribute my successes in growing my herd to that bull.

The process of cross-breeding has enabled the animals to be of a good quality, which is marketable, and multiply in numbers.

I am using cross breeding in order to get economic value because the local animals are smaller in size and poorer in quality. Thus, they cannot attract good money and produce a sizeable amount of milk.

In the past, producers have thought of crossbreeding as simply replacing bulls every two to three years with whatever breeds were popular at the time. This has led to problems with uniformity of the resulting product.

Work ethic

Good quality cattle need to be selected in order for crossbred cattle to outperform straight-bred cattle and produce the type of product that is in demand by the consumer.

However, it should be noted that mere crossbreeding will not overcome poor genetics. It has been patience and hard work, which has paid off for me. One could possibly say this work ethic comes from my having a military background at one time.

Yes, I was in the military since the days of Idi Amin up until 1985. Since then, I have continued driving as my occupation though I was no longer in the army. After this, I got other driving jobs before my current one as a driver at the district Naads office in Arua.

Trainings

I attend to the animals as my main economic activity especially after work. I feel happy to see my cows and goats return from grazing.

My farm covers six acres and comprises land that I inherited from my father though most of it was bought from my own earnings.

I have also benefitted from several trainings in agriculture given by Naads and I now use it to increase production such as the use of a tractor.

I use a tractor to till the land on which I grow improved cassava. The neighbouring communities buy the new variety cassava stems from me.

Retiring

I also employ other people. There are two youths who look after the cattle and goats. The one who rears cattle is paid Shs45,000 monthly and the one responsible for the goats is paid Shs30,000 monthly. The two are only assisted by my children when they return for holiday from school.

The rearing of cattle is central to my farming business and as such I attend to them closely. From the earnings, I am able to live a meaningful life. I look forward to retiring from driving to become a full-fledged animal farmer.

features@ug.nationmedia.com

Tanzania: Zero-Tilling Farming Coming to Arusha

Posted by Unknown in Africa, Tanzania, Zero Tillage on Sunday, 12 May 2013

BY MARC NKWAME

Tanzania Daily News (Dar es Salaam)

Tanzania: Zero-Tilling Farming Coming to Arusha

Arusha — SCIENTISTS here will next month be trying to convince local farmers in the Northern Zone to stop cultivating their lands. That will take place during the "Tanzania Agro-Business Expo 2013," according to organizers of the event the East African Grain Council.

The 2013 Agro-Business event is essentially going to be a "farmers' week" but different from the National "Nane-Nane" on that the EAGC "farmers show" will strictly be about farming and agriculture; no business artifacts, plastic flowers or drinking sprees that are usually seen in national events. Local farmers and peasants who will be attending the event will therefore learn new ways of doing agriculture without tilling their farms.

"As for the Zero-tilling we shall train farmers on how to go about it, using the socalled 'power tillers,' where instead of cultivating the soil, the machines can be attached to furrow opening planters and scoop just little holes to plant the seeds leaving the rest of the patch undisturbed," said Dr Elias Saria of Selian Agriculture research.
According to Dr Saria, the weeds will be removed by ordinary herbicides that will be caused to rot and converted to manure at the same time and that this method of farming, already in use in some parts Karatu and Meru Districts of Arusha as well as Mbulu District in Manyara is so far showing positive results.

"After a while, farmers will no longer have to apply fertilizers because the soil will still retain its natural state plus the added advantage of decaying weeds and zero disturbances to help the natural production of essential nutrients," added the researcher.

The 'Selian Agriculture Research Institute' which operates in the outskirts of Arusha, along the main Dodoma road is co-organizing the event and in fact also hosting the Agri-Business expo at their base opposite the Arusha Airport near Kisongo area.

The event runs between 14th and 15th June, 2013 according to Mr Samuel Rutto, one of the event coordinators. The "Expo" theme is "commercializing agriculture and helping farmers move from manual labour to mechanized farming," for improved yields and effective execution of their day-to-day duties!

Mr Gerald Masila from the EAGC said the event will bring researchers, farmers, peasants, agri-processors, agents, inputs suppliers and consumers on single platform where they may share ideas and exchange contacts for mutual partnership.

What Dwindling Camel Herds Mean for The World

Posted by Unknown in Africa, Camel, Cattle and Livestock, Herding, Meat Animal, Middle East, Milk, Nutrition on Sunday, 27 January 2013

Stephanie Findlay

Staff Reporter

The Star

Our insatiable appetite for camels is taking its toll. The population of the humpy beast in the Middle East is rapidly declining, threatening herds around the world.

The Problem: According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, the stock of meat-producing camels in Saudi Arabia, slaughtered yearly for the hajj pilgrimage, has decreased 39 per cent, from 426,000 in 1997 to 260,000 today.

The story is the same in Pakistan, where numbers are dropping because of camel racing, a popular pastime. It’s believed the camel population dropped 20 per cent between 1994 and 2004 in Asia.

Consider the camel in Somalia, where it is a source of food (both meat and milk), trade and transportation. Millions of them — an estimated 50 per cent of the country’s total population — have died from the famine; yet another reason for their declining numbers.

Meanwhile, Australia has for years been culling its camels — a cruel consequence of globalization. They were introduced to the arid outback in the 18th century by British settlers but without any natural predators or diseases, they have become an invasive species. Today, there are an estimated 1.2 million feral camels living Down Under and the population is expected to reach 2 million next year.

In fact, Australia’s parliamentary secretary proposed a plan this summer that would see accredited marksmen shoot the camels for carbon credits. Apparently, the animals emit an infernal amount of methane and have been identified a contributor of climate change.

Australia has also become a supplier of camels, selling them Saudi Arabia for meat.

The Impact: For some, disappearing camels are a desert version of the canary in the coal mine. As one Somali herder said to the BBC: “When they start to die, then what chance have sheep, goats and cattle?” He might have added humans. To date, some 80,000 Somalis have died from hunger and thirst because of the famine.

The Hope: Some parts of Somalia continue to enjoy high camel stocks. After a livestock ban was lifted, Somali herders supplied some $250 million worth of animals to Saudi Arabia for the hajj pilgrimage last month.

Provided Somalis can work around burdensome rules imposed by the Al Qaeda-linked Shabab militia, an organization that controls large parts of the country, Saudi Arabia plans to double its imports of livestock from the country by 2013.

Somalia could also invest more money into its burgeoning camel dairy industry. Currently, the country has a competitive advantage — it’s the world’s largest distributor, supplying 850,000 tons of camel milk a year — and a bigger market could be developed. (Camel’s milk is reportedly saltier than that of a cow and much richer in vitamin C and B, iron, and unsaturated fatty acids.)

Pigeon Pea Genome Cracked: Benefits Farming Millions in Asia & Africa

Posted by Unknown in Africa, Biotechnology, Genetics, Hunger and Famine, India, Pigeon Pea, Research and Technology, Research Institute

A team of scientists has claimed to have achieved a major breakthrough by successfully sequencing the genome of Pigeon pea, considered an “orphan crop” and “poor peoples’ meat “ for its protein-rich content, mainly grown by small and marginal farmers across the world.

(ZEM Science) Years of genome analysis by a global research partnership led by the Hyderabad-based International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) has resulted in the identification of 48,680 pigeon pea genes.

In the fight against poverty and hunger amid the threat of climate change, highly nutritious, drought-tolerant crops are the best bets for small farmers in marginal environments to survive and improve their livelihoods and now the pigeon pea gives the hope with its genome fully sequenced.

Pigeon pea, grown on about 5 million hectares in Asia, sub-Saharan Africa and South-Central America, is a very important food legume for millions of the poor in the semi-arid regions of the world.

Unfortunately, its productivity is less than one ton though it is considered as the “poor people’s meat” because of its high protein content.

Pigeon pea is the first “orphan crop”, the first “non-industrial crop” and the second food legume (after soybean) with a completed genome sequence.

The scientific partners include the International Initiative for Pigeon pea Genomics (IIPG), led by ICRISAT, BGI – Shenzhen (China), USresearch laboratories like University of Georgia, University of California-Davis, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, and National Centre for Genome Resources, and support from the CGIAR Generation Challenge Programme based in Mexico.

The journal Nature Biotechnology had recently featured this development besides giving clues on how the genomics sequence could help improve the crop for sustainable food production, particularly in the marginal environment ofAsia and Sub-Saharan Africa.

“ A couple of hundreds of these genes were found unique to the crop in terms of drought tolerance, an important trait that can be transferred to other similar crops like soybean, cowpea or common bean that belong to the same family, “ the journal said.

“The mapping of the pigeon pea genome is a breakthrough that could not have come at a better time. Now that the world is faced with hunger and famine particularly in the Horn of Africa brought about by the worst drought of the decades, science-based, sustainable agricultural development solutions are vital in extricating vulnerable dry land communities out of poverty and hunger for good,” says ICRISAT Director General William D. Dar.

“The sequence will significantly speed up and reduce the cost of screening the ‘good genes’ within the stored pigeon pea seed collections in gene banks like that of ICRISAT, dramatically reducing the cost of developing new improved varieties for farmers. Now we can breed a new variety in just 3 years as against 6-10 years before, “claims Rajeev Varshney, lead scientist and project coordinator.

Prof. Huanming Yang, Chairman, BGI-Shenzhen, the world’s largest genomics institute and a key partner of this project said he was confident of forging more dynamic and fruitful partnerships between Indian and Chinese genomic scientists.

Significantly, it is for the first time that the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) had supported the India-based center like ICRISAT for leading the genome sequencing of a food crop.

Kenya is Growing Onions Using New Technologies

Posted by Unknown in Africa, Kenya, Onion, Vegetable

From his two-acre farm, Simon Nderitu stooped as he scrutinized his red bulb onion crop this season. “Before the project, I was farming because it was what everybody else did here to get food. But things have changed significantly for small-holder farmers who embraced a farming project led by Farm Concern International,” he said. Nderitu is among participants in an initial pilot project spearheaded by Farm Center International (FCI) which started with 2,000 people in 2007, but has since been scaled up to include 10,000 farmers of Kieni located in Nyeri County, Central Kenya. A combination of holistic extension and advisory approaches, the project instills good agro-practices for higher quality production, treats agriculture as a means to social integration, brings farmers and traders together in mutual business understanding, and ensures that government agricultural officers deliver service at the point of need.

It also fosters new technology adoption and advises farmers on sound financial practices like savings. Ultimately, it aims at improving the entire value chain, through innovative approaches like linking markets to farmers, farmers to sellers of farm inputs, creating personalized interactions between various stakeholders. Nderitu now knows how to prepare his land, secure affordable right seed varieties and plant based on seasonal projections and market demand.

Yields Treble

The project has enabled Nderitu to more than treble his farm yield. “Before 2008, I used to cultivate open pollinated varieties, which gave me on average 4,500 kilograms in a good season. But after adopting hybrid variety in 2008 and employing other good farming practices, the same piece of land yielded for me 7,000 kg in my first harvest under the project.” Convinced by this huge gain, he dedicated two thirds of an acre to hybrid onion in 2009, and the yield shot up by 2,000 kilograms. Today, the father of three is a proud owner of an eight-roomed decent timber house, dairy cattle and his children have been moved from public schools to a private academy for quality education. Coming from a laid-back peasantry economy in a semi-arid area, Nderitu now knows how to space seeds when planting and what varieties will fetch good returns.

“I have learnt how to identify the right fertilizer and the amount to apply, when to start weeding and how to cure the onions to prevent them from rotting after harvesting,” he added. From the nursery to maturation, onions take on average 120 days and a kilo middles at KSh.30 to KSh.50 (US$ 0.318-0.531) compared to four years ago when same could fetch only KSh.5 (US$ 0.053) a kilo. Nderitu, the chairman of Embaringo Commercial Village, a consortium of farmer groups within a given administrative village, said they have seen a revolution since 2008 with farmers moving from mainly subsistence production to commercial farming.

Socio-economic Transformations

“Many children are now able to go to school, good houses are coming up and the young are turning to farming instead of migrating to urban centers for the ever elusive promise of employment.” The project directly links farmers to traders, eliminating crafty middlemen who dominated sale and fleeced farmers. Nderitu said some middlemen are resorting to onion farming after seeing the possibility of lucrative returns and others play the role of bulking during low production within the villages. The appearance of shopping centers in the once poverty stricken sleepy village of Embaringo is a clear indication that the impact of such onion growing has significantly improved peoples’ purchasing powers in the area.

The Embaringo Commercial Village, Nderitu explained, coordinates production, sales, collective savings, looks into the welfare of farmers, as well as negotiates for bulk farm inputs at a much lower cost compared to individual purchases. Gerald Ngatia Watoro, Market and Trade Manager for Mount Kenya Region project that combines both Kieni West and East, said the pilot has made a huge impact. “The communities then had no organized mechanism in production and market development. We, therefore, decided to focus on hybrid red bulb onion having realized that it would not only lift many out of total penury but positively impact on development in this rural setting. On average production was low at about 1,500 kg per acre and the quality of the onions was poor,” Watoro explained. FCI launched the project with the involvement of the Ministry of Agriculture Officials, the local Provincial Administration and the farmers. “We wanted an all-inclusive process built on a consensus rather than a top-down approach. We wanted the people to own the concept for it to work.”

New Technologies

A key component of the discussions was technologies that could be adapted. These included using the right seeds, proper agronomical practices and good post-harvest technologies. The project started with administrative villages made up of 150-200 households and created groups called Commercial Group, which formed an umbrella consortium called Commercial Villages. These are members who have agreed to work together to form an economic bloc with common leadership. Farmers were trained in the science of small-scale commercial farming like good land tilling methods, nursery management and transplanting, weeding, use of herbicide and proper spraying methods and program, especially more effective and less costly preventive spraying.

It also includes lessons on natural resource management and soil fertility: how to keep soils fertile through practices like crop rotation, water management through harvesting of path and roadside water run-offs into their gardens, digging of trenches to conserve water in farms and to check soil erosion. They have been trained on record keeping, both at the individual farm level as well as for the village groups. Today, project participants release on average 10,000 kilograms of onions per acre and this fetches up to US$ 3,194. Farm inputs and overhead costs averages US$ 532 leaving a farmer with a profit of US$ 2,662 from an acre of hybrid onion. They plant seed verities like Red pinoy FI, Jamba FI, and Red star, marketed by different seed dealers.

Commercial Village Concept

Even more interesting about the project is the Commercial Village concept. It is an association of groups within a village known as Commercial Producer groups with various sub-committees and functions as a business hub. According to Watoro, the FCI market development strategy directly links farmers to traders and thus eliminates middlemen influence in the value chain. Farmers now have a growing database of onion traders in Nairobi, Mombasa, Karatina and Kisumu accessed easily from cell phones. Onion traders are also trained in cash flow management, business development plans, transportation, customer selection and formation of traders associations. “What we want is sustainability, which is only possible if all the components are working efficiently and making profits,” Watoro explained.

Kieni has largely been considered developmental backwater. Yet Watoro said banking institutions were moved in and marked an increase in number of those holding accounts. According Stanley Mwangi, FCI Strategy and Partnership Director, they have focused on giving farmers the right knowledge and changing the attitude of farmers to see farming as commercial venture. They seek to make farmers develop habits like making savings and linking them with research institutions. Their new frontier in extension services will be the ICT.

Source: onislam.net

Boosting Agriculture is Key to Reducing Effects of Climate Change

Posted by Unknown in Africa, Agriculture and Farming, Flood, Global Warming, Natural Disaster, Research and Technology, Scientist, South Africa

Floods, drought, food insecurity hit Africa hardest

Kim Lewis | Washington D.C.

(Voice of America) Scientists say agriculture must be a key focus in confronting the effects of climate change.

Agricultural experts at the climate conference in Durban, South Africa, say this year's meeting offers a unique opportunity to address the role of agriculture in reducing the effects of greenhouse gas emissions.

“If you look at the projections for climate change, the worst hit is going to be Africa,” said Bruce Campbell, director of the Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security for the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR).

“Even if you look at what’s happening today in terms of the numbers of disasters, numbers of floods, numbers of droughts, it’s already being felt in Africa,” he said.

Campbell, who’s attending the conference, said climate change is wiping out crops and livestock.

But he said a variety of solutions are being discussed at this year’s meeting, as are many small-scale success stories.

“What one wants to do is scale up on the successes. For example, there’s risk insurance; it ensures farmers against calamities. There [are] improved weather advisories so farmers have a better idea before the season starts, and then they can make wise decisions about whether they invest in fertilizer,” said Campbell.

There are also techniques like “conservation agriculture” in southern Africa, where already 250,000 Zambian farmers are benefitting from more soil fertility, improving yield and at the same time putting carbon back into the soil.

Agriculture production contributes about one-third of global greenhouse gas emissions. Half of these are direct emissions from agriculture itself. “For example, fertilizer application results in nitrous oxide.

The other half is from the impact of agriculture on forests, where [they] are cleared for agriculture use,” said Campbell.

In the case of fertilizer, the nitrous oxide released can be reduced by using the smallest effective amount and carefully targeting its application.

Campbell added that by applying these techniques and technologies, agricultural production can be improved and pollution reduced.

Click on audio to hear entire interview.

India Helping Ethiopia Realise Full Potential of Neem

Posted by Unknown in Africa, Medicinal, Neem Tree, Tree on Saturday, 26 January 2013

Almost a century after neem was introduced in this East African nation, India, where the tree originated, is helping Ethiopia realise its full potential.

"Ethiopia has unlimited potential for the plantation of the neem tree which grows in humid, arid, and hot places. India, which is the birthplace of the tree, earns $2.5 billion annually from the sale of Azadirachtin (a chemical extracted from the tree and used to manufacture pesticides) alone," Neem Foundation of Ethiopia chairman Taye Teferedegn told.

"The tree has enormous advantages from agriculture to medicine, from industry to the environment. Its use is really countless. If we work on it, we will have another item for export on our list," he added.

Towards this, a presentation was made here by an Indian business and academic delegation that was invited by the Neem Foundation of Ethiopia as part of its awareness creation and technology transfer objectives.

During the visit, Ramesh C. Saxena, chairman of the Mumbai-based Neem Foundation, delivered a lecture that was attended, among others, by a representative of EID Parry India Ltd, a huge Indian pest control company that focuses on the industrial extraction of Azadirachtin. The company aspires to discover the opportunities in the development and processing of the neem tree in Ethiopia, an official said.

One kilogram of Azadirachtin currently sells at around $1,200 dollars on the international market.

"The visit would enable the Foundation and the nation to tap into a very valuable technology and knowledge transfer opportunity," Teferedegn pointed out.

The Neem Foundation of Ethiopia has chalked out a five-year plan to plant over one million neem trees in at least three regional states of the country and start the extraction of Azadirachtin and the production of various neem bi-products. The Foundation, with the support of donors, had planted over 150,000 neem seedlings in Afra regional state over the last four years.

The Neem Foundation of Ethiopia is a non-governmental organisation established by Ethiopian scientists in 1995 to promote the Neem tree in this country. Since its establishment, the Foundation has carried out various activities to expand the plantation of neem trees in the country.

"It has medicinal value in addition to economic benefits. It can produce timber and firewood while at the same time absorbing carbon and helping with land conservation. It did not receive as much attention as it should have in order to maximize its benefits. We are currently working with the Neem Foundation of Ethiopia to make use of its advantages exhaustively in the future," said Sertse Sibuh, forestry case team coordinator at Ethiopia`s agriculture ministry.

Ramesh C. Saxena is renowned for his bio-pest control initiative both in India and globally. From 1991 to 2000, he was senior principal scientist at the International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology (ICIPE) in Kenya where he coordinated a $1.79 million neem awareness project in sub-Saharan Africa funded by the Finnish government and the United Nations Environment Programme. The project contributed to mitigating rural poverty through dissemination and diffusion of neem technology for better plant, animal, human, and environmental health.

Saxena received a masters in tropical agriculture from the University of Hawaii and a doctorate in entomology from Delhi University.

IANS

The Art Of Farming | Livestock Diseases Limit Zambia’s Export Potential

Posted by Unknown in Africa, Cattle and Livestock, Diseases

By STANSLOUS NGOSA

(Times of Zambia) Livestock diseases have been a major hindrance to the growth of the sector over the years in Zambia.

For individual farmers and households, the reduced growth leads to reduced food security directly from a loss of source of protein and indirectly from a loss of income from sales of livestock and reduced crop production due to loss of draft power.

The poor economic status at household level caused by animal diseases has continued to make families unable to send their children to school and meet medical fees or even have a balanced diet.

These combined losses have led to a reduced quality of life for most households that have depended heavily on livestock production.

At national level, the disease situation has led to limited export opportunities and thereby reducing the potential contribution to Gross Domestic Product.

In recent years there has been a lot of illegal movement of animals, especially cattle as more people have gotten involved in the trade of livestock as a source of livelihood.

The challenge for the veterinary services has been to curb this vice but it is increasingly difficult given a shortage of staff and logistic support.

Bob van Bijl, who recently led a Dutch investment team in the country, said Zambia had so much potential to grow the meat and dairy industry to high export levels.

He, however, said the stigma of the country being a disease-prone area was hurting the industry.

Mr Van Bijl said Netherlands is a large exporter of meat, milk and other dairy products and several investors would like to invest in Zambia because of the suitable weather and economic conditions.

Mr Van Bijl regretted that Zambia’s meat and dairy products were shunned because of the perception that there is too much livestock diseases.

Mr Van Bijl said the efforts to rid the country of livestock diseases should be stepped up so that the country takes its right place as net exporters of meat and dairy products.

Netherlands, with the knowhow in livestock rearing and export, could help Zambia better manage its animal wealth and push it up to compete with South Africa in the region.

Luanshya’s Kampelembe Camp Agriculture Committee chairperson Pythias Timba said the revision of the Livestock and Animal Act to strengthen veterinary health services is one of the serious commitments the Government should show to improve the livestock industry,

"Doing so will improve the quality of livestock products and probably help Zambia satisfy the EU standards and break into that market," Mr Timba said.

He said the establishment of new ministries of Livestock and Fisheries with a strengthened legal framework would significantly contribute to the effective operation of the sector.

Mr Timba, who is specialised in artificial insemination which entails breeding of cattle, said there is need for the Government to pay attention to livestock diseases.

"Since the population of cattle is handsome, the Government should also consider subsidising chemicals so that the majority of livestock small-scale farmers can protect their animals," Mr Timba said.

Mr Timba said there is need for the Government to create incentives in the livestock industry like it has done with maize because the benefits from livestock are many.

He said he appreciated that maize is a staple food, but there was need to improve other sectors like livestock sub-sector because of its huge benefits.

Mr Timba said there is also need to adapt relevant and sustainable diagnostic techniques to support and control the eradication of diseases.

"As a country we need to develop and improve disease surveillance and outbreak investigation methodologies in order to mitigate diseases," Mr Timba said.

He said conducting regular investigations on the nutritional status of livestock in the traditional sector and recommend appropriate mitigation measures and use of crop residues and agro-industrial by-products is also good for enhanced crop production.

Elina Moyo of Kafwaka in Kapiri Mposhi said it is good to provide and harmonise an efficient livestock extension system as a means of transferring proven technologies and empowering small-scale farmers with better management skills.

She said there is also need to design, develop, and transfer improved livestock housing and handling facilities to small-scale farmers after a research has been conducted.

"It is also important to conduct characterisation of indigenous livestock breeds and promote their conservation," Ms Moyo said.

Therefore in order to address this situation the Government will undertake a baseline and subsequent annual livestock audits for planning purposes.

According to the Patriotic Front (PF) manifesto, the Government will undertake a livestock restocking programme coupled with appropriate training for cattle farmers.

Prioritise dipping, vaccination and treatment of diseases of all domestic animals, rehabilitate existing and construct new dip tanks and make cattle dipping compulsory in order to ensure that the discipline that is implied on the actions of farmers and traders – regarding stock movements or regular dipping is enforced and becomes routine, as in past years.

The Government also wants to establish joint livestock disease control commissions with relevant neighbouring countries in order to curb illegal movement of livestock.

Carrying out regular vaccinations and other livestock disease control programmes simultaneously with neighbouring countries are some of the measures the Government wants to implement.

Intensifying tsetse-fly eradication programmes simultaneously with neighbouring countries, assessing the methods of managing grazing land for better yield of meat per hectare are other measures the Government wants to put in place.

Currently, these issues are being pursued by some NGOs and aid projects and render support where appropriate.

The Government also wants to promote small livestock development involving poultry through intensive vaccination programmes against various small livestock diseases as well as upgrades training and deploys adequate numbers of front line veterinary extension officers.

It is therefore important to improve productive efficiency of the livestock sector in a sustainable manner and support the marketing of both livestock and livestock products and contribute to food security and income.

Agri Gossip