J.K. Kyambwa
Commissioner for Livestock Development
Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock Development
P.O. Box 9152, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania
Mr. Chairman, Distinguished PANESA members, Ladies and Gentlemen: It is indeed a great pleasure for me to have this opportunity through which I can share with you our ideas on pasture work and animal nutrition and the direction of such a discipline in Tanzania.
Secondly this meeting has additional importance not only in exchanging ideas but also in getting acquainted with scientists involved in this vital discipline in different sub-Saharan countries.
It is obvious that people coming from different parts of the Eastern and southern African region would have different experiences which can be shared with us. As you are all aware, present demand for food, grazing, fibre and fuel has increased beyond the limits that nature can provide unaided. Future demand for the land to produce these products will be even greater. The potential of the land to produce these products is set by the soil and climatic conditions and by the level of inputs and management applied to the land. Any overuse beyond these limits results in degradation beyond economic feasibility and subsequently yields decline, threatening the lives of the people in the countries, as it is happening now in sub-Saharan African countries.
Mr. Chairman, let me highlight the forage resources in Africa as a whole with examples of the constraints prevailing in Tanzania.
The forage plant resources of Africa are composed of forests, such as the Congo forests, woodlands/brushland and savannas which cut across the continent. In these communities, there exist numerous grasses and herbaceous plants which form the bulk of the livestock diets. These communities have been used to enrich the genetic pool of pasture plants, particularly grasses for other tropical countries.
In its natural state the African biome is quite delicate; its management requires the application of proper ecological principles to maintain the system. With an exception of the Congo forest, the woodland/brushland and grassland formations are typical rangelands of Africa and are very important to us. These rangelands are usually semi-arid and in most cases receive annual precipitation below 700 mm. However, their potential in livestock production is enormous. Much of this range resource remains under exploited.
In Tanzania there are 60 m ha of rangeland potentially suitable for livestock production but only 6m ha are currently utilised. Underutilisation of this resource is due to high tsetse fly infestation, poor management practices, lack of land tenure policy, inadequate water supplies, overgrazing and lack of markets.
Tsetse Fly Infestations
About 530 m ha are infested with tsetse flies. These areas cover the bulk of western and eastern Tanzania. Some pockets of tsetse also occur in northern Tanzania in the national parks and game reserves. Consequently livestock expansion has been limited by the presence of the flies and the lack of national policy for tsetse control.
Poor Management Practices
In the traditional livestock sector, which accounts for 99% of the total livestock numbers in the country, animal husbandry is poor, resulting in low calving, weaning and offtake rates, and high pre-weaning and herd mortalities.
Lack of Land Tenure
Most of the traditional grazing lands are owned publicly and grazed communally. There are no restraining measures on the number of animals an individual can keep. Under this communal tenure system, there is not enough motivation for an individual or group of individuals to invest in pastureland improvement programmes, or to maintain the quality of existing infrastructure.
Inadequate Water Supplies
Unreliable rainfall coupled with seasonal rivers, has necessitated conditioning the livestock to drink water irregularly. Prolonged dry seasons have made it impossible for the livestock to maintain their weights resulting in excessive unthriftiness of the animals. In severe cases prolonged dry seasons followed by severe forage shortages result in livestock deaths.
Overgrazing
There is a general inability on the part of the farmer to match the animals to the available forage. This has resulted in overstocking and subsequently overgrazing. This trend in turn is characterised by soil degradation. The consequences have been low herd fertility and high mortality rates.
Lack of Markets
Although the notorious killer diseases such as rinderpest have been under control, the quality of livestock accrued from these efforts are still below the standard required by the meat importing countries. In addition to this, there have been insufficient incentives locally to force the stock owners to sell the right proportion of their livestock. Consequently, the offtake rates have remained below 10%.
Further, a general lack of basic infrastructure such as dips, watering points, livestock development centres, markets, cattle handling facilities, dispensaries, etc. and pursuance of conflicting objectives on the use of land, all combined limit the widespread distribution of livestock.
The exploitation of the African forage plant resource will therefore depend on how fast our local scientists can realise appropriate interventions to mitigate the above constraints. The testing and adaptation of simple techniques to improve the productivity of the forage resource should provide a challenge to research scientists.
The overgrazing trend characteristic of the heavy livestock areas in Tanzania imply that the present pasture plants cannot withstand grazing under a communal land-use system. Research scientists in pastures are therefore confronted with the task of providing plants that are going to establish easily, persist under drought conditions, provide nutrients to livestock as well as having a soil stabilising characteristic.
In Tanzania, considerable efforts have been given to pasture research since the early 1930s, as animal nutrition became evident as a limiting factor to livestock production. Up to 1970 findings on eases of range productivity, manipulation of species introduction and evaluation and pasture agronomy, had been realised through zonal research centres. These findings were carried out by non-African scientists on short contracts; as a consequence, they have been of little practical application.
The bulk of our range is still under communal land use system. Past research also suffered from leek of coordination, direction, continuity and a responsible institution for pasture research.
Mr. Chairman, my country has embarked on rehabilitating the present research institutions, such as the Tanzania Livestock Research Organization (TALIRO), with more support in terms of animal diseases, tsetse, trypanosomiasis and pasture research.
The Pasture Research Institute, to be established at Kilosa, will be charged with the responsibilities of carrying out research in better methods of range resource use to farther animal productivity in the country. The immense responsibility will be the focus of discussion in the three-day workshop.
Mr. Chairman, having discussed briefly the status of pasture research in my country, you will bear with me and look briefly at the food and livestock situations. Food and agricultural output has not kept pace with the increasing population due to many factors which may not be different from those operating in other PANESA member countries. These include: lack of infrastructures (particularly feeder roads) and low level technology in agriculture, livestock and fisheries. These problems have become acute as a result of long-standing input supply, ineffective extension services, lack of skilled manpower and inability of past research efforts to make a break in key areas.
Agriculture is still the backbone of our country's economy, contributing well over 50% of the foreign exchange earning. However, the livestock sector's contribution to the economy as compared to arable farming, has for a long time remained insignificant.
Food crop production during 1972-1980 increased at 5% per annum compared with 3.5% decline in cash crop production. The increase in food crops was due to increase in the amount of acreage brought into production while yield per unit area actually declined.
Tanzania's present livestock population stands at 13 m cattle, 5.8 m goats, 3.8 m sheep, 130,000 pigs and approximately 25 m poultry. Its distribution follows the pattern of human population and is inversely correlated with the areas infested with tsetse flies. The main areas of cattle raising are the dry open grasslands or wooded grasslands where precipitation is marginal for crop cultivation. Large concentrations are in the northern and western parts of the country and the population is expanding in the southern highlands.
In terms of livestock per head of the human population, Tanzania is one of the most significant livestock rearing countries in Africa. Yet the average consumption level of animal protein per person is only 22% to 33% as estimated by the Food and Agriculture Organization. There is a marked difference in consumption level between rural and urban populations, as well as between the regions.
In order to increase the livestock sector's contribution to the national economy and increase consumption levels of animal protein in the short and long term, my Government plans to develop the traditional, commercial beef and dairy herds.
Traditional
Some 85 to 90% of the national cattle herd is under stock owner cultivators. Livestock development strategies under stock-owning cultivators will emphasise both livestock and crop production. Experience has shown that as crop production declines, livestock population also declines and vice versa. The remaining 10 to 15% of the national herd is owned by pastoralists who occupy the grasslands of Serengeti, the woodland and wooded grassland of the Maasai Steppe. This production system is characterised by ownership of large numbers of stock, lack of livestock movement control, communal grazing system, traditional husbandry practices, absence of livestock records, rudimentary identification methods, estimation of cattle numbers and continuous breeding. Selection and culling is seldom done. There is no routine disease control programme, except for the nationally coordinated campaigns, like rinderpest. Traditional pasture and range management methods and non-specialised grazing systems are practiced. When developed, it will be able to play its part in raising the animal protein consumption levels to 4.3 kg protein per capita.
The development would require proper land-use plan and provision of livestock improvement packages. This would be achieved by settling farmers in villages and development of village ranches followed closely by the application of principles of range management. The overall development of the traditional herd require that it increases by 69% in order to meet the year 1990 national beef targets, and a further 50% increase would be needed to meet the year 2000 demand. To meet these, annual offtake rate targets would have to increase from 10 to 12% by 1990 and 13% by year 2000. Carcass weights would have to increase from 100 to 120 kg.
Commercial Beef Herd
Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen, the commercial beef herd is only a small portion of the total cattle population run independently by the NARCO, TSC and ASC. However, the Government has been charged with the responsibility of:
1. Building up an improved quality beef herd which will provide a source of stock for the traditional sector;2. Producing improved quality beef for home consumption and for export;
3. Acting as a catalyst for improved ranching techniques for the traditional sector;
4. Fattening feeder steers purchased from the traditional sector, thus increasing the overall national meat production; and
5. Providing certain technical and training services where possible.
The development strategy followed includes expansion of the ranches and intensification of some of the existing ranches. The expansion strategy has realised over 15 ranches. Many of the ranches under NARCO are low-cost extensive ranches. Some of the mature ranches have been intensified by investments in the development of the environment and water. Consequently, they have reached their production targets as manifested in their average production coefficients:
- calving rate 56%,
- weaning rate 50%,
- pre-weaning mortality rate 9%,
- herd mortality 7%,
- offtake rate 15.4%.
The herd offtake rate will have to increase by 15 to 20% and carcass weight from 150 kg to 165 kg in the long term (1990-2000) to meet the projected beef demand as required by the National Food Strategy of 1982.
Dairy Herd
Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen, in the analysis of the livestock sector, the role played by the dairy herd in the nutrition of our people and the economy of the country has not been forgotten. Development of the herd which comprises commercial dairy farms, traditional cattle owners and the smallholder dairy farms, aims at stimulating dairy production to substitute for imported milk products in the short term and to develop dairy units throughout the country in the long term to provide milk for the rural population.
The commercial dairy farms are mainly run by the parastatal organisations including Tanzania Dairy Farming Company Limited (DAFCO), Tanzania Sisal Corporation (TSCO), National Agricultural and Food Corporation (NAFCO) and co-operative unions. The projected milk production targets of 10 m litres per annum have not been realized due to a lot of problems including inadequate herd size on various farms. This implies that imported milk products have continued to increase to meet the market demand for milk.
The traditional sector which produces about 365 m litres of milk per annum plays an important role in supplying milk to the rural population. Strategies to develop this sector should therefore focus on up-grading and selection coupled with improved management and feeding.
The smallholder dairy farmers increase the supply of milk in rural areas and nearby urban areas. They are very efficient when compared with commercial producers. This system is being encouraged by ensuring that dairy heifers are available for them and providing essential services such as artificial insemination.
Having discussed briefly various herds of the livestock sector and the role they have in the economy and the nutrition of the people in the country, a trend which may resemble that in some of your countries, I have to point out that the contributions made by the sector have been due to efforts and progress made in the control of animal diseases, and to some extent to the genetic improvement of local breeds of livestock.
Mr. Chairman, the livestock sector would have been in a position to contribute more to the economy and nutrition of the people, if sociological, economic and animal nutrition constraints were solved. PANESA is therefore charged with the responsibility of generating scientific knowledge in the short and long term to utilise the range resources for the benefit of current and future generations. The knowledge sought should be able to allow for multiple range resource use for sustained range productivity. Part of this task has been initiated by the Range Management and Tsetse Control Section in my Ministry. It is hoped that combined efforts of this section and those of the Pasture Research Institute to be established at Kilosa and sister pasture research institutes in PANESA member countries will realise findings to exploit range resource. I wish you the best of success in this workshop.
