Stakeholders in the agricultural sector have challenged the Ministries of Finance and Agriculture, Mechanisation and Irrigation Development to work closely in crafting a budget for agriculture that covers both crop and livestock production.

In an interview yesterday, Zimbabwe Farmers Union executive director, Mr Paul Zakariya, said the absence of a Government scheme to re-build the national cattle herd was worrisome.

“There has been no Government scheme to cover cattle production since 1997 when the only Government initiated scheme that was rolled out by the then Cold Storage Commission collapsed.

“Since then there has been nothing except some attempt by the ZFU, CSC and representatives from the Ministry of Agriculture, Mechanisation and Irrigation Development to initiate something but that has also died a natural death,” said Mr Zakariya.

He said the major challenge facing the cattle industry was lack of funding, something that should be taken care of from the planning stage of the agricultural budget.

“When we talk of agriculture, we should not only focus on crops but cattle too so that institutions like CSC can be capitalised to initiate programmes of re-stocking. There should be specific programmes for cattle production.

“In the past there were calf-heifer programmes, cattle trade-ins with CSC and the heifer loan schemes that helped farmers boost their herds,” explained Mr Zakariya.

He said the land reform programme saw many breeds of cattle being moved into new areas and sometimes unsuitable ecological regions.

He said this compromised productivity. Zimbabwe at the moment has a herd of 5,2 million that supports the beef industry. The industry has over 80 registered abattoirs with capacity to slaughter 1,5 million cattle per year.

Agriculture, Mechanisation and Irrigation Development Minister Joseph Made, recently hinted that average slaughters per annum were limited to plus or minus 400 000, giving capacity utilisation of 27 percent. Low off take, disease control and productivity remain major setbacks in the sector, he said.

“While the bull to cow ratios appear to be good, the quality of bulls and breeding systems remain major challenges that undermine the attainment of the desired calving performance targets,” said Minister Made.

He, however, indicated that CSC was still receiving cattle from Botswana, something that would take off the pressure from the local cattle industry and allow some slight growth.

The deal, he said, would be continuing for some time so this would give some kind of respite to the beef industry.

Mr Zakariya also corroborated this saying financial challenges had seen the industry failing to put in place a comprehensive disease control and prevention programme to guarantee the industry of continued existence and flourishing trade in cattle products.

Mr Zakariya expressed concern over the failure by most smallholder farmers to use artificial insemination as a breeding method because they did not have the financial resources and technical capacity. He added that the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe’s cattle programme that ran from 2004 to late 2007 had failed to be effective as farmers converted it to pen fattening scheme in which they would sell the animals to the abattoirs later. Farmers in all provinces received the heifers from the RBZ.

“Farmers were not re-building the national herd but re-conditioning animals which they later sold to make money and not increase numbers,” he said.

Zimbabwe Commercial Farmers Union president, Mr Donald Khumalo, said it was Government’s mandate to control animal diseases but the only challenge was funding.

This has resulted in many farmers failing to control diseases at farm level especially those in rural areas who cannot afford to buy chemicals for vaccination.