Cattle are ruminants that can eat and digest inexpensive, high-fibre plant material, unavailable to non-ruminant animals, and turn it into protein and energy. Inside the rumen, one of the earth’s most densely populated microbial habitats, billions of micro-organisms transform grass into nutrients for themselves and for the host cow. During…
Aggrey Mahanjana’s farm, Carnarvon Estates, is a rancher’s dream north of Queenstown in South Africa’s Eastern Cape Province. Aggrey engages with the country’s Land Reform Programme by working towards commercial-scale production. Carnarvon Estates is set in a vast landscape of rolling grasslands and the high, rocky ridges of the Stormberg.…
Driving its adapted mouthparts into the skin of its host the infected brown ear tick delivers a deadly injection as it starts to feed on bovine blood. Catching a ride in the tick’s saliva, sporozoites (spores) of the protozoan parasite, Theileria parva, the agent of East Coast fever, make their…
Visitors to the Agritech Expo Zambia 2018 at Chisamba in Central Province entered a declared foot and mouth disease (FMD) zone en route to the expo recently. The affected areas of Chisama and Chibombo had 5 000 recorded cases of FMD by the 16 April, according to The Times of…
Kingsley Kachenjela, founded the popular Facebook group Small Scale Farmers (Farming as business) (397 000 followers) to provide farmers with a platform to access and share relevant agricultural information. A man who believes that action must follow talk, Kingsley spoke about finding markets for farmer produce, at Zambia’s recent Agritech…
Dipping, or acaricides, is one of the weapons in farmers’ arsenal in the war against East Coast fever (ECF). Here’s more on trade names and chemical groups. The chemistry that dictates how acaricide compounds work is complex and needs profound levels of understanding. Cattle farmers need only to know how…
Dipping, or acaricides, is one of the weapons in farmers’ arsenal in the war against East Coast fever (ECF). There are three major options available in the battle against ECF: dipping to control the ticks, vaccinating to control the parasitic protozoan parasites that cause the disease, treating animals soon after…
The control and management of ticks, and tick-borne diseases, is complex and difficult, but not impossible. Success depends on commitment, co-operation, funds, some knowledge and a healthy dose of common sense. East Coast fever (ECF) and its vector, the brown ear tick, present the most serious disease challenge cattle farmers…
At the end of January The Zimbabwe Herald carried a report on an outbreak of tick-borne “January disease” (East Coast fever) in the north-eastern sector of the country. The report stated that 2 000 cattle had died of the disease. The actual number of deaths was probably higher. The Herald…
Boschveld, a 50 ha farm in the Bela-Bela area of South Africa’s Limpopo Province, is the operational heart of Mike Bosch’s indigenous chicken business. Mike Bosch is white. He is also African to the core. His context is African, his approach is African, his adaptability is African, his knowledge and…
Every year, for 3 days in April, farmers, vets, agri-business people, dignitaries and diplomats, from across the sub-region and beyond, descend on a small town called Chisamba, home to Zambia’s Agritech Expo. World-wide agricultural expos are held wherever people farm. They are the lifeblood of industrial agriculture, acting as display…
There really cannot be that many people who don’t like watermelons. For sheer eating pleasure a cool, juicy slice of watermelon on a hot day is difficult to beat. Sweet and delicious, the fruit contains vitamins A, B6 and C and a significant measure of lycopene, a phytonutrient, good for…
Nan Smith writes about her observations on the pitfalls and benefits of farming subsidies in the United Kingdom. On a recent short visit to the United Kingdom (UK) I had the good fortune to cast my eyes upon the agricultural landscape of parts of rural England through the windows of…
Timot Damiano from Malawi is honing his farming skills by growing chillies in South Africa. Across the sub-region the cry from smallholder farmers is for knowledge. Extension services in Africa are substandard and it’s often up to the individual to find his own learning resource. Farmers are eager to learn…
Amaranths (family: Amaranthaceae) have their origins in the Americas, but have been global travelers and settlers for thousands of years and are said to be among man’s oldest food crops. Beetroot, spinach, chard and quinoa are also members of this family. The amaranth is a pioneer species that will quickly…
Farmers borrow money to improve and maintain farm infrastructure, to upgrade equipment, to finance the production of the coming season’s crop, to buy in animals or to buy more land. Briefly put, they use borrowed money for recapitalisation, production and expansion. The banks will lend farmers between 60% and 80%…
Stakeholders in the wider agricultural sector from Europe and the United States of America (USA), but mainly from Africa, gathered at the recent African Agri Investment Indaba in Cape Town, South Africa. The event space rang with the sound of an impressively diverse array of languages, a striking reminder of…
African nightshade is another star food plant from the family Solanaceae - the same family that provides tomatoes, brinjals, potatoes and, our previously featured indigenous food crop, the African eggplant. Prepared in African kitchens, the leaves and fresh shoots of this nightshade offer diversity and nutritive value to the menus…
Ticks and tick-borne diseases are an enormous threat to cattle and to the men and women who farm them. This threat is greater in warmer and wetter areas. As far back as 20 years ago, over a million cattle died every year (in the sub-region) from just a single tick-borne…
Solanaceous crops, like African eggplant, need to be rotated and cannot return to the same field (or the same garden patch) until 2 or 3 seasons have passed. Factor this into your medium-term plan. LAND PREPARATION Plough, disc and ridge if you prefer to follow conventional cultivation practices. A more…
It is common knowledge that farming is an unforgiving business and that it is common sense to test seed before you plant a crop. The earlier you find problems, the more easily you can solve them. GERMINATION TEST Randomly select 100 seeds from the top, the middle and bottom of…
Act immediately and implement practical rules and procedures that help to keep viruses at bay during an outbreak of avian influenza. A strain of the highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) virus - H5N8 - is currently having a field day in South African poultry systems where it is causing serious…
The current buzz around diversity is not just trendy scientific talk. It really is important in agriculture to diversify your farming operation. If all your eggs are in one basket and you drop the basket… well, you know the deal. If all your lands are planted to maize and the…
Assisted calving should not be an event that occurs regularly in any herd, but it is useful to know what to do should you have a cow that needs some help delivering her calf. This Jersey first-calver had been in labour for about 90 minutes when I stopped to have…
