Without water and grass, 7.4 million cattle target will fail – NASFA

National Association of Smallholder Farmers (NASFA) has […]

National Association of Smallholder Farmers (NASFA) has warned that Zambia will struggle to meet its 7.4 million cattle herd target by 2031 without urgent investment in grass and water, as the country braces for El Niño conditions.

 In an interview with Zambia Business Times-ZBT, NASFA Executive Director, Dr. Frank Kayula said government is now looking towards an even higher target of 11 million cattle, but this will depend heavily on reliable water, adequate feed and better organisation of smallholder farmers.

“Livestock requires grass for food, and the other food materials that are made into feed also require water, so feed and water are the things that we need to focus on” said Dr. Kayula.

He added that irrigation systems should be expanded across farms, including communal schemes that could reduce costs while providing water to larger groups of livestock farmers.

 “We can establish water systems through irrigation, and that is why we are promoting irrigation equipment in as many farms as possible, including communal irrigation systems which may even be slightly cheaper,” said Dr. Kayula.

 He stated that Zambia must also increase production of livestock feed by growing maize, sorghum, soybeans, cereals and grass, including irrigated pasture. “We need to grow sufficient grain for livestock feed, but we can also use crops like sorghum and grow grass and irrigate it so that we have enough feed for the animals,” said Dr. Kayula.

 Meanwhile, he noted that Zambia can potentially achieve the $1 billion annual beef export ambition by 2031 if smallholder farmers are properly organised and linked to disease-free production systems.

 “We can be able to export that much by 2031, especially if we organise the smallholder farmers and make use of the disease-free compartments that have been created by our colleagues in the Zambia Beef Export Project,” said Dr. Kayula.

 He told ZBT that farmers must move away from keeping cattle mainly for prestige and instead adopt commercial fattening systems that focus on productivity and market demand.

 “We keep livestock for prestige mainly, where people want to see numbers, but we need to organise the system so that we are also looking at markets, fattening as many animals as possible and then selling them,” said Dr. Kayula.

Article by Philip Sinkala