Dairy farmers mull artificial insemination

22 Feb, 2019 - 00:02 0 Views

eBusiness Weekly

Nesia Mhaka
The Zimbabwe Association of Dairy Farmers (ZADF) will soon adopt artificial insemination for breeding to reduce the costs of importing heifers and dairy products from South Africa.

ZADF principal dairy officer in the Department of Livestock and Veterinary Services’ (Dairy Services Unit) Addmore Waniwa, told Business Weekly on Wednesday that the costs of importing heifers for breeding and finished dairy products for consumption have skyrocketed.

This had affected the viability of the dairy sector, and is consequently impacting the economy negatively.

Said Waniwa: “Our objective is to adopt improved genetics and latest scientific animal breeding techniques to magnify dairy productivity across communal, small-scale and commercial agriculture.”

Recently, DZL chief executive officer Antony Mandiwanza told members of the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Industry and Commerce, when they toured the company’s Harare plant recently that prices of heifers have soared by over 100 percent, in US dollar terms, making it economically unviable to stock them.

When DZL started the heifer programme in 2015, a beast was going for $1 200 but within two years, the prices have escalated to an average of $2 300.

Mandiwanza suspects the South Africans have increased the price of heifers after realising that Zimbabwe was a “captive market”, prompting the company to scaled back the heifer programme “significantly”.

ZADF says the selection and importation of suitable stock and semen was expected to significantly boost national milk production levels.

Waniwa said their objective was to make Zimbabwe self-sufficient in its dairy requirements by next year.

“If all goes according to plan, we target to be producing 130 million litres of milk per year by then. Last year, the country produced 75 million litres of milk, which is way below our annual requirements.

“We should be self-sufficient by 2020 and we should be able to supply milk at the right quantity and at the right price,” he said.

Waniwa added that the adoption of modern technology at all levels will enhance production and enable the country to meet the growing demand for milk products, both locally and in the SADC region.

“Breeding efficiency is in every way a measure of livestock productivity and in dairying, milk is a product of the cow breeding cycle,” he said.

Zimbabwe has a processing capacity of 130 million litres a year but is currently operating at 45 percent capacity owing largely to high production costs, low cow herd and poor adoption of modern breeding technologies.

The country is blowing US$7 million in the importation of milk products primarily powder and finished products such as cheese and margarine from South Africa.

This has stretched the country’s import bill and is depleting the scarce foreign currency reserves, which ordinarily the dairy sector should be building through exports.

Share This:

Sponsored Links

Survey


We value your opinion! Take a moment to complete our survey

This will close in 20 seconds