A lack of animal feed is destroying the dairy industry in Zimbabwe
Updated on 09 September 2008
Dairy farmers in Zimbabwe are having to let their cattle starve, writes Helen, our Zimbabwe blogger.
"The calves cry when I walk past their pens," Sandra told me this week as she made frantic arrangements to try and keep her dairy cows and calves alive. Sandra is one of the few dairy farmers left in the country and tells of a desperate situation facing livestock farmers and their animals.
"We ran out of dairy meal three months ago," Sandra said. Stockfeed suppliers have no maize and no soya beans - the two main ingredients of animal feed. As food supplies for people have dropped to crisis levels, what reserves there were have been diverted for human use, leaving animals emaciated, starving or being slaughtered for meat.
Milk is non existent or in extremely short supply in supermarkets everywhere.
The lack of animal feed couldn't come at a worse time of year. It's the dry season and we haven't had a drop of rain for five months. What grazing is left is dry, brown and at its least nutritious.
Exacerbating the situation are countless uncontrolled fires which are devouring the country every day. Smoke and ash fill the sky from dawn to dusk as wild fires sweep across the vast landscape of farms that were seized by the government leaving black, barren dust bowls in their wake.
In the three months that Sandra's been unable to get dairy feed, milk production on her farm has dropped from 1800 litres to 250 litres a day. Sandra ordered and paid for cotton seed cake from one of the hundreds of door to door black market dealers who run the country. That was the last she saw of them, or her money.
These smooth-talking wheeler-dealers can source anything, and keep the country ticking over. They trade on the black market in anything that's in short supply, from fuel and foreign currency to bank notes and food - particularly flour, sugar and cooking oil. They call themselves "entrepreneurs", and if you aren't prepared to take the risk and buy from them, you go without.
Sandra is selling the cows that are losing condition to butchers, and putting all her time and effort into saving the stronger cows.
Sandra has lost 14 of her dairy cows to starvation in the past three months. She has lost count of how many calves have died in the same period of time. She is selling others that are losing condition to butchers, and putting all her time and effort into saving the stronger cows.
"It is truly the worst time ever," she said. "We've had two calves born in the last two days, and I just look at them and think: Oh hell, another two mouths to feed. And the calves are heifers too, usually a time to rejoice."
Sandra has resorted to scouring the bush for feed to keep her cows alive. She sends her employees out far and wide looking for acacia trees and they sweep up the dry, brown pods and bring them home in empty grain sacks. The pods are chopped up in a mill along with grass, pea-hay and dry maize stalks (locally known as mashanga), and on this Sandra is keeping her remaining dairy cows alive.
The impact of the imminent collapse of Zimbabwe's dairy industry is already being felt across the country. Milk is non existent or in extremely short supply in supermarkets everywhere - even in small farming towns. What milk there is increases in price at least once every week, and mostly it is raw, unpasteurised and sold direct from dairies to customers who bring their own containers.
In the last month milk sellers have started charging in US dollars as those dairy farmers who can afford to, have no choice but to importing their own stock feed from South Africa or killing off their herds.
