Minister threatens Zimbabwe's white dairy farmers

DEPUTY Minister of Agriculture, Mechanisation and Irrigation Development Paddy Zhanda has warned remaining white dairy farmers working against national programmes that they risk being kicked out for arrogance.

Zhanda, who is responsible for livestock, was addressing milk producers and processors at the 4th Annual General Meeting of the Zimbabwe Association of Dairy Farmers last week in Nyanga.

He said there was nothing special about being a white farmer.

Zhanda said they should support national programmes and toe the Government line.

He rejected proposals by dairy farmers to reduce the maize producer price for them to get cheaper stockfeed.

"Government recognises the need to spare dairy farmers but the dairy farmers must recognise that it is not a right. Whether you like it or not, it is not a right, so do not abuse that recognition. You cannot do what you want. No," said Zhanda.

"I am giving you this free advice. Your co-existence with newly resettled farmers is important. These are the people that will fence you off. They are your representatives and witnesses to your continued existence (on the farms)."

He added: If we are to choose between you and the generality of the people, the answer is obvious. You must co-exist and capacitate those newly resettled farmers around you."

Zhanda said the reason the sector was worried about the maize producer price was due to lack of innovation and research into sustainable agricultural practices.

Instead, Zhanda said, the sector should attend to issues like cost of production, accelerated local production of heifers adaptable to local conditions, continued improvement in good quality genetics, establishment of a dairy school, establishment of a new template for smallholder dairy farming and exposure to latest sustainable dairy practices.

"If you ever think we will be influenced by your complaints to reduce the price of maize in order to enable yourselves to get cheaper stockfeed, that will never happen," Zhanda said.

"Our policies are influenced by a broader spectrum of issues that come into play. Considering that your interest is to remain in dairy farming and ours as Government is to maintain power and make the generality of the people happy, we have to find each other," he said.

"There are many ways to feed your animals other than maize. Look at your cost of production and devise ways to reduce them. There are grass species that we are promoting as Government that have crude protein of 15 percent and a yield of 50 tonnes per hectare."

He said Government, in a bid to improve genetics, had asked the sector's annual requirements of serviced semen, to which it has not responded.

Zhanda said though the Dairy Revitalisation Programme, through which 400 dairy cows were imported into the country, had benefited farmers, it had its own challenges.

The programme was introduced through a private public partnership initiative and is being driven by the dairy industry as part of a five-year strategy on milk self sufficiency aimed at doubling the country's milk production by 2020.

At some point, Zimbabwe used to produce 260 million litres per year.

Although there has been steady improvement since 2009, the local dairy sector still has a long way to go in meeting national requirements of at least 120 million litres of milk annually, given that current production was less than half of the national requirements.

The programme relies on improved genetics and modern animal breeding techniques to improve dairy productivity across communal, small-scale and commercial agriculture.

About $46 million is required to fund the sector's vision to produce 131 million litres by 2022.

"While Government appreciates your target of 2021, it is sceptical of this ambitious target in the absence of tangible steps that the dairy industry has put in place to achieve this target.

"In other words, what are the practical actionable programmes that the industry has put in place? There are a number of factors which have been identified as challenges to achieving maximum potential in milk production such as; unavailability of adequate and appropriate dairy breeds, inadequate technical and management skills, poor governance in the smallholder dairy sector, lack of proper business management systems or skills by dairy farmers and high feed costs leading to a high cost of milk in Zimbabwe (currently 20 percent more expensive than regional parity)," he said.

Zhanda challenged the farmers to move out of the comfort zone and look for solutions to challenges.

"Year in, year out, dairy farmers identify and talk about the cost of production as one of the biggest problems among other challenges that your members have and continue to grapple with. My biggest disappointment is that literally nothing has been done about it. You seem to be very content with what you have.

"You have created a comfort zone for yourselves and you seem not to be mindful of the fact that all the measures that Government has put in place are temporary measures to give you time to put your house in order and ready yourselves for your participation in the global arena."

"We need to quickly up our game, let us take stock of ourselves quickly and get out of this false comfort zone that we have created for ourselves," said Zhanda.