Beef cattle production and management
Practical Action
The major challenges these farmers face on beef cattle production; management and marketing
are:
1. Poor animal health
2. Shortage of adequate grazing
3. High livestock mortality rate (20% per year)
4. Poor animal husbandry skills
5. Weak support from public and private
institutions
6. Poor access to markets
7. Uneconomic Iivestock prices
To address these challenges, there was need to develop a beef cattle production and
management training manual for smallholder farmers in Mbire.
To develop a consensus-training manual, a participatory workshop that involved all categories of
the community by gender and socio - economic status, was conducted at Mbire District
Development Association at Mushumbi Pools in October 2006. The purpose of the workshop was
to review the current beef cattle production and management practices and their short-comings
and come out with ways of:
Strengthening community - driven animal health management practices;
Strengthening the capacity of animal health support institutions for the provision of more
effective and sustainable support to the community,
Improving animal nutrition using guar beans and cowpea stover during dry months of the
year when grazing is scarce; and
Finding the most effective ways of bringing together beef cattle producers and buyers to
collaborate and buiId sustainable marketing systems.
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