eBusiness Weekly
Kudzanai Sharara
The country’s dairy farmers need at least $46 million for them to be able to double the country’s milk production within five years, Business Weekly has learnt.
Under the umbrella of the Zimbabwe Association of Dairy Farmers (ZADF), dairy farmers plan to double national milk production by 2022 as it positions itself to meet local demand as well as export into the region.
In 2017, the national dairy production was 67 million litres against national demand of 120 million litres, but ZADF, in its Strategic Plan (2018-2022) intends to grow production to 131 million litres.
“To realise our strategic plan by 2022 an estimated funding requirement of $46 million is needed to produce the 131 million litres target,” said immediate past chairman of ZADF Emanuel Zimbandu in the foreword to the strategic plan.
To achieve this, the Association is calling on interested stakeholders to provide financing amounting to $46 million.
“I do believe this is possible through mutual public private partnerships, joint ventures, commercial investment and coordinated donor funding into this sector,” Zimbandu said.
The strategic plan comes at a time national dairy production is 67 million litres as at 2017 against a national demand of 120 million and a processing capacity of 400 million litres per year.
According to ZADF most of the country’s processing capacity is being underutilised owing to low herd sizes among other causes including but not limited to high maintenance costs and lack of equipment.
“The dairy sector in Zimbabwe still faces several obstacles such as the high cost of production, inefficient production systems and unavailability of long-term funding. In addition, factors such as shortage of water and stock feeds as well as erratic rains also impact negatively on production.
“In addition to low herd sizes, milk yield per cow remains low especially among the smallholder producers owing to poor management at farmer level, poor breeding practices and lack of finance among other factors,” said ZADF.
Investment into the sector is, however, expected to help increase average milk production from 12,5 to 15 litres per cow per day.
As part of the strategic plan, farmers are planning on increasing the herd size and quality (breed) of animals, implementation of more efficient production systems and influencing a conducive policy and regulatory environment for dairy farmers.
ZADF says the bulk of the funds amounting to $26,5 million will be used to increase the dairy herd by 14 000 heifers in three years’ time.
A total $18,5 million will be channelled towards capacitating dairy farmers with appropriate machinery.
Calls to increase breeding
By 31st December 2018, all farmers are expected to have improved access to affordable, quality semen for improved herd genetics through artificial insemination (AI).
The target is to ensure 80 percent of farmers have access to semen and have their own breeding plan for their farm.
Industry experts are of the opinion that the country cannot continue to import dairy cattle but should have a special programme to promote breeding if it is to meet its 2022 target.
Speaking at the recently held 5th annual general meeting for Zimbabwe Association of Dairy Farmers, industry expert and Nestle chairman Kumbirai Katsande, said the country does not have enough capacity on breeding but cannot continue to rely on importing from the Eastern Cape in South Africa.
This comes as players in the dairy value chain have been importing heifers as a way of growing the dairy sector. Currently Zimbabwe imports approximately 60 percent of its milk requirements from South Africa.
Zimbabwe Stock Exchange listed entity Dairibord Zimbabwe, imported over 1 000 heifers to boost milk production in the country after the national herd was decimated by disease outbreaks and farm upheavals following the government’s land redistribution programme.
Nestle also had its own dairy revolving fund scheme meant to boost milk output and by 2016 had imported more than 1 200 dairy cows. Dairy farmers have also been importing cows in their individual capacity.
Current dairy herd size in Zimbabwe is estimated at 28 000 cows down from peak of about 122 000 cows in 1990s.
With a target to double the national milk production by 2022, farmers believe this would not be met by importing heifers as this also comes at a time the country is faced with chronic foreign currency challenges which might mean some of the forex demands might not be met.
Katsande said the country used to have vibrant research centres in the country, which were very useful to the dairy sector and called on government to have them revived.
“We used to have vibrant research centres Handerson (Research), Grasslands (Research) which were very useful for the dairy industry and what we can only say is if we can have some assistant that those institutions are revived,” said Katsande.
Speaking on the side-lines of the AGM, veteran dairy farmer, Piet De Bryan, said the model he would have taken to grow the dairy herd was to find dedicated farmers who are able to breed.
“What we need is to find dedicated farmers who are going to be able to breed and must have enough land to breed. Farms that have been given out are too small for a dedicated breeding farm.
“We have lot of guys with experience who are running on small farms just managing to make themselves a living and just survive but have potential to run 10 times as much,” said De Bryan.
Breeding experts say the country can easily grow its milk production by introducing AI technology for breeding.
According to Dr Nathaniel Makoni who made a presentation at the AGM, through AI adoption, livestock breeding becomes easier and safer as the technology reduces the spread of venereal diseases in the farm stock.
“We need to start breeding and when we breed we need to know our target and why so that we can have targeted breeding which leverage on technology to determine the outcome.”
Land tenure is also an issue
Presenting the state of the dairy industry at the AGM, Zimbabwe Dairy Industry Trust chairman Theodora Marimo, said for farmers to continue to invest into the industry there is need to give them long security of tenure at the farmers.
She said five year leases were not encouraging enough for farmers to make significant investment in primary milk production to double output.
Dairibord chief executive officer Antony Mandiwanza, echoed the same sentiment saying there was need to give dairy farmers confidence that whatever investments made in the sector will bring in the required returns.
He said for dairy farmers to be encouraged to grow milk production they must have confidence that the investment they make, which requires a minimum of five years return on investment, is secured.
“It starts basically on the issue of the land. Giving people a five year lease at a dairy production base does not work. In fact what it says is we are not understanding what dairying is all about,” he said.
“It takes nine months to carry a calf in the womb, it also needs up to 24 months before that calf to go onto the bulls, and then it will carry another nine months before it drops the calf. So it’s clear that we are looking at a cycle of not less than 5 years,” said Mandiwanza.
Minister of Lands, Agriculture and Rural Resettlement Perence Shiri has however said Government has since scrapped 5 year leases for all farmers.
“When I became a minister we were very clear that for any farmers to get involved in a serious business they need an extended period of presence on the land. And we said we were scrapping the 5 year leases and replacing they with the 99 year leases. I expect they got the message. Every farmer is entitled to a 99 year lease and that is what we are issuing. We are not issuing different (leases) expect for companies which we issue 25 year leases.
