By Kudakwashe Pembere
Zimbabwe for years has been neglecting the viability of the feed and fodder value chain which has the capacity to generate US$25 billion over the next five years. This amounts to an estimated US$5 billion economic sub-sector.
Feed and fodder is an important component in the growth of the livestock sector.
This was said by Zimbabwe’s Feed and Fdder Multistakeholder Platform vice chairperson Mrs Tendai Marecha in an interview following the Africa Union InterAfrica Bureau of Animal Resources (AU-IBAR) Resilient African Feed and Fodder Systems (RAFFS) meeting held in Harare this week.
“We are trying to streamline the food and fodder sector to be an economic sector on its own because now we see that it is embedded in livestock, in all the strategic documents it is embedded in livestock.
“Yet we have actually realised that the feed and fodder is of significant importance in Zimbabwe.
“Most farmers own livestock and the livestock sector contributes about 17% GDP and we, in our plans during this workshop, have discovered we can actually make the feed and fodder sector a US$25 billion economic sector,” she said. “So if we work well and work with all the plans as we have agreed here, by 2030 we are having a new economic sector which is the feed and fodder sector.”
She said this was prompted by the recent drought which saw over 10 000 die due to lack of fodder.
“So, we are trying to forge a plan so that we can prevent a disaster in such incidences. Last year we lost over 12,000 animals that were reported.
“So, we calculate the value of the animals that we lose because of mismanagement or underfeeding.
“If we had planned, if we had projected our feed needs, we would have produced enough feed even to take care of those animals during the drought seasons.
“So with this project we are trying to then industrialise and get investors that are interested in growing feed and fodder as a business,” added Ms Marecha.
Director of Livestock Production and Development in the Ministry of Lands, Agriculture, Fisheries, Water and Rural Development (MoLAFWRD) Sithokozile Sibanda said the sector has long been ignored noting they were hoping to rope in financiers like the Industrial Development Corporation and others to invest in this multi-billion sector.
She also said Government has several initiatives to revamp the national heard in the country such as genetic improvement in livestock.
“The government had a presidential program that was involved in distributing feed and fodder to the vulnerable rural communities of the country. We have seen a lot of food and feed being distributed in communal areas where the livestock are mainly dying and affected by the drought season,” Dr Sibanda said.
AU-IBAR RAFFS Business and Development expert David Maina said it was important for farmers to know their production outputs and inputs to proper manage their livestock.
“Livestock producers can depend on feed and fodder producers to ensure that they produce ahead of time.
“So that if livestock producers run out of feed resources, they always know that because there is a stable and a strong feed and fodder sector, they can have reserve feed and they don’t have to go without producing meat or producing chicken eggs or poultry meat or milk because we have run out of fodder. This is why we are here,” Maina said.
