You’ve decided to farm with goats, but how do you know which breed is best? Here’s a guide to selecting the right goat for your needs. The type of goat you buy depends on whether you want to farm with goats for meat or milk production. Once you’ve established this,…
Question: I’ve heard that dairy cows can have serious problems with heat stress. Is it serious and what can I do to prevent it? Heat stress in dairy cattle can be prevented, but this condition still causes significant financial losses every year. Heat stress in dairy herds costs the milk…
Question: I’m a beef farmer, but am interested in starting a dairy. Do you have some advice? Not many new farmers consider going into dairy production, but if you already farm beef cattle, it may be a good idea to start dairy ranching. The demand for milk in developing countries…
It is believed that successful farming requires a lot of land, but Ugandan veterinarian and farmer Dr. Emma Naluyima believes that with creativity you can build a productive farm on a small piece of land. Emma divided her 1 acre (0.4 hectare) piece of land into 4 quarters. On the…
Question: I would like to start a dairy and I live in a very hot and humid area. Which cattle breeds will work for me? A farmer does not need a lot of capital to get a dairy going. A wise move is to look at one of the hardier…
There is a general impression that it is easy to run a dairy – cows spend the day grazing and they only need to be milked every day. But dairy farming is much more complicated than this. A dairy could be run in a relatively simple way, but it needs…
More than 250 million litres of milk go to waste annually despite the deficit the nation faces, says the Dairy Association of Zambia (DAZ). “The wastage comes about because producers cannot get to the milk to market due poor road networks and the high cost of transportation,” DAZ said in…
The African Asian Rural Development Organisation (AARDO) has donated a refrigerated milk truck to the Mauritius Livestock Marketing Cooperative Federation (MLMCF). The truck is expected to improve the transportation and storage of milk products as part of a broader government plan to boost the dairy value chain. Mauritian Business, Enterprise…
The Kenyan Dairy Board (KDB) has raised alarm over public health risks posed by the heavy presence of drug residues in local dairy milk. KDB Chief Dairy Development Officer Kaberia Muriungi told local media that milk samples tested over the past one year period up to October 2017 had tested…
Bran shortages have hit Zambian dairy farmers, triggering calls to curtail maize exports to help meet the national demand for the commodity. Maize is a major component in the production of bran. Dairy farmers said maize exports coupled with millers’ preference to export bran has made the industry vulnerable to…
The Kenyan dairy company Happy Cow has made significant progress improving the quality of milk delivered to them by farmers by paying these farmers according to the quality of their milk. One of the major achievements was the reduction of the occurrence of antibiotic residues in milk to less than…
Africa spends a significant amount of money importing dairy products that could be produced locally. “In East Africa there’s a yearly shortage of 40 billion litres of milk. Products that we can produce ourselves shouldn’t be imported,” says dr. Okeyo Mwai, lead scientist at the International Livestock Research Institute (Ilri)…
The 13th African Dairy Conference and Exhibition, known as AfDa, will be held in South Africa this year. ESADA, the Dairy Association of Eastern and Southern Africa, will host the event from 15-17 November at the Birchwood Hotel and OR Tambo Conference Centre in Boksburg. The theme is Sustainable Dairying:…
Henry Mulenga wants to build a multi-million kwacha dairy and beef cattle business. But in his own words, “there is a huge challenge for small-scale livestock farmers like myself to rapidly increase our animal population with high productive breeds because of a lack of access to artificial insemination (AI) services”.…
Braunvieh cattle crossed with Brahman produce a cross-bred animal that is very popular among extensive dairy farmers in Namibia. Dairy farmers are suffering all around the world amid low producer prices and high production costs. In Namibia, with its difficult farming conditions, you can expect it to be even tougher,…
Faustina Phiri who farms in the Njolwe area near Lusaka, experienced a paradigm shift when she realised that agriculture meant a lot more than planting maize. Faustina was one of a group of retirees who were given land on the former farm of the Dairy Training Institute in the mid…
Goat’s milk is good business for farmers who supply niche markets. But with the right marketing, and more interest from small-stock farmers, the goat milk market has excellent prospects. QUALITY FOOD AND VALUE ADDING A few goats can supply an average family with enough milk for their daily needs, for…
Leonard Mavhugu, a dairyman from the Eastern Cape of South Africa, talks to africanfarming.com about managing large herds and releasing the potential of farm personnel. It’s two hours before dawn. Dairy farmer Leonard Mavhugu is on the move, driving through the darkness to Amadlelo Agri’s dairy at Fort Hare, outside…
Farmers are known for their ability to give old diesel tanks many new guises in a variety of innovative ways. Mr Hannes Esterhuyse has done just that, making water troughs using rings cut from an old diesel tank. Hannes, a sheep farmer in the South African Karoo-desert, has designed and…
Namibia’s best extensive dairy farmer for 2015 successfully combines the production of fresh milk and the growing out of oxen in tough, dry conditions on his farm. Pure-bred dairy cows are not suitable for extensive dairy production in the toughest parts of Namibia. As a result, extensive dairy farmers prefer…
The Dairy association of Zambia (DAZ) has urged small-scale dairy farmers to practice standard hygiene procedures during the rainy season. This will hold milk quality. According to Victor Ng’andu, DAZ dairy development officer, good rain since late December has caused good pasture growth and fodder production. Small-scale farmers have increased…
Although many experts say that a small-scale dairy don’t pay, there is room for the small operator to supply local markets. And everyone must start somewhere. The advantages of the modern milking machine are not really debatable; mainly because milking by hand, although feasible, is very time consuming, and hygiene…
Small-scale farmers own most of Zambia’s cattle but produce only 50% of the country’s milk. Given the value of milk as a food, this seems a pity when it is quite possible to improve milk production, without major capital injections, through small tweaks to management with significant outcomes. The Zambian…
Shortly after 20:00 last night, (24/11) power had been restored after a 128-hour power failure that crippled half of Zambia, even though a few isolated areas were still in darkness. Especially poultry and dairy farmers breathed a sigh of relief, but also role players all the way down the value…
