07 Aug 2018

Small stock farming can be good business, a source of income if farmers can value and take care of their livestock, a member of the South African Boer Goat Breeders Association, Mr Josef Kleynhans has advised.

Work-shopping small stock farmers in Kanye recently, he urged them to cultivate a positive attitude and believe in the animal stock they had rather than strive to outdo their neighbours who they believed had better livestock than theirs.

He also stated that Batswana farmers look down upon their farming success and think they could only benchmark from South Africa farmers to better production without realising that they had better livestock productions.

Mr Kleynhans advised small stock farmers never to sell or slaughter productive animals because they would have lost an opportunity to increase stock and make money, and encouraged them to cull only the unproductive ones.

He emphasised that Batswana had vast fertile grazing areas suitable for goat farming than in South Africa where grazing areas were poor. 

He added that small stock production in Botswana was an opportunity farmers could invest in and make more money.

He encouraged small stock farmers to plough lab lab and feed their animals, noting that it contained 16 per cent of proteins that were crucial for development in animals in terms of growth, weight and gestation. 

Mr Kleynhans implored farmers who used maize to feed their livestock to always mix it with lab lab, saying maize does not contain all the nutrients as it contained only 4 per cent of proteins.

He said farmers should regularly dose their animals to avoid parasites which could reduce production on animals, and urged Batswana to utilise opportunities they had such as low diesel prices and plough lab lab through government assistance programmes such as ISPAAD.

He said government has programmes such as the Youth Development Fund which could aid young farmers to venture into agri-businesses, indicating that Batswana were not seriously utilising the opportunities availed to them by government. 

He highlighted the importance of joining societies and pleaded with small stock farmers to join farming societies in order to speak with one voice on their challenges and engage government as a block rather than individually. ENDS