The Chairman of the Zimbabwe Association of Dairy Farmers, Piter Musariri, said the African Continental Free Trade Area has presented an opportunity for African countries to increase production and do business with one another.
Musariri said this during a week-long benchmarking engagement between dairy farmers from Namibia and Zimbabwe in Harare.
During the benchmarking exercise, Namibian dairy farmers from the Omaheke Region engaged Zimbabwean agriculturalists to learn about the best practices and how to deal with challenges such as fodder production and water provision.
Piter Musariri, Chairman of the Zimbabwe Association of Dairy Farmers, stated that with the African Continental Free Trade Area in the works, forming a formidable partnership between Zimbabwe and Namibia will aid farmers in gaining much-needed and timely skills transfer.
"I think the timing is so perfect because Zimbabwe, Namibia, and other countries are all members of the African Free Trade Area, which is massive, and we will be opening borders to ensure that there will be cross-border trading. There is a massive opportunity to improve our products as we can help our counterparts in Namibia to upscale their dairy. Even in Zimbabwe, we still need to upscale the production to meet the world demand."
Musariri adds that support programmes through associations and the government are of paramount importance to assist dairy farmers.
A young farmer at Bella-Vista, Cyprian Kunaka, who owns more than 200 herds of dairy cows a few kilometres outside Harare, says the first thing a dairy farmer needs is to produce enough fodder for animals to save money on buying it.
A proper support system is also needed, not to mention sufficient water provision.
"Most of our feed, about 60-70%, we grow it here. For the other 40%, we buy byproducts and mix them together to make a dairy meal, which is high in protein and energy to supplement the silage that we have. The challenge we have with other emerging dairy farmers is that they think that the concentrate should be the main or stable part of the diet, which is wrong. It should be either the pasture or the maize silage. Otherwise, the cost of production will be very high."
After touring various dairy farms in Zimbabwe, a Namibian farmer, Frans Murangi, says they have learned a great deal from the Zimbabwean farmers.
"They are saying that for you to start this process, you must start with the feeding arrangements. Make sure that you have got the right feed and enough fodder for your animals before you start, so first, we need to reach that level of producing our own fodder for us to become successful."