More livestock, less productivity: What’s the problem?

From inside a pig kraal for Mariah Mlenga of Luwinga Township in Mzuzu bursts a cacophony each time someone approaches it.

The pigs become more restless, sometimes violent to each other. And, as if in a rehearsed song, they change their sound pattern, usually from mild grunts to more piercing squeals combined with long grunting snorts.

That sound is not for nothing. It is a sound of hunger as two days have gone without feed in the kraal.

“It is not easy these days to find feed for livestock. Maize bran [madeya] has become expensive and scarce,” says Mlenga, who ventured into piggery to diversify her farm production.

She has six pigs, and they need a 20-litre tin of bran a day. However, most of the maize mills around her area usually run out of bran, mostly during the lean period. January to April was the worst.

During these months, maize was trading at K300 per kilogramme (kg) due to an increase in demand for the staple amid devastating hunger that left 2.8 million Malawians starving.

“Just as maize was scarce and expensive, the same was the case with maize bran. A 20-litre tin of bran was selling at K500 up from the usual K250,” she says.

Smuggling of the maize bran to Tanzania, where livestock farming is more vibrant, exacerbated scarcity of the feed in the city.

Truckloads of maize bran were spotted in most mills. They were destined for Tanzania’s Mbeya District where the feed was fetching three times the price it was attracting in the country.

“Tanzania has a vibrant livestock farming such that they have special market days for livestock feed,” says one of the smugglers who refused to be named.

Mlenga had to rely on shrubs to feed her animals.

“The challenge, however, was that most of the dambos [wetlands] were flooded and it was not easy to find the shrubs,” she says.

Consequently, Mlenga sold half of the livestock for fear of starving the pigs to death.

The devastating effects of climate change on food production have not been limited to livestock production.

“It has been a double tragedy. I also depend on crop farming. But this year, I have harvested five tins from an acre. Usually, I get between 50 and 80 tins,” says Mlenga.

Literature on climate change paints a bleak picture for Malawi where global warming is projected to increase temperature by two to three degrees Celsius by 2050, causing a decline in rainfall and water availability.

Recent climate change projections over south-eastern southern Africa, including northern Malawi, predict shorter rainfall seasons associated with a later start to the season, earlier rainfall cessation, increase in mean dry spell length and reductions in rain day frequency.

This has far-reaching consequences for dairy, meat and wool production, mainly arising from its impact on water, grassland and rangeland productivity.

Lilongwe University of Agriculture and Natural Resources (Luanar) professor of animal breeding Timothy Gondwe says Malawi needs to employ a new thinking to counter such effects on animal husbandry which is on the rise.

According to the 2013 Department of Animal Health and Livestock Development (DAHLD) Census, Malawi has a growing livestock sector in which, in a space of 12 years, the cattle population increased by five percent, goats by 12.5 percent, sheep by 8.5 percent, pigs by 32.6 percent, rabbits by 25.5 percent and poultry by 63.4 percent.

Despite the increase in numbers, the census says, livestock productivity has not increased.

In addition, despite breeding improvements, milk production is static and yet to beat the mark produced over half a century ago when technology was not advanced.

Gondwe says the country needs to conserve the indigenous livestock which are well adapted to present environments. He, however, admits that the indigenous livestock have poor production performance.

He says: “As such, there is need to select for breeding only livestock that is outstanding, prominent and vigorous to help improve productivity.

“The problem is that policies favour improved exotic livestock. The unwanted, negative consequences include decreased genetic diversity that translates to loss of adaptive capacity to harsher environmental conditions and decreased survival. Genetic diversity in indigenous livestock is extremely important in helping mitigate effects of global climate change.”

Gondwe, who is also Natural Resources College (NRC) principal, says policy strategies need to be revised and reviewed to establish where the country went off-track, especially at implementation level.

The livestock sector in Malawi has the National Livestock Policy (2006-2011) and the National Livestock Development Strategy Document (2003-2008) whose main goals are to create an enabling environment that can drive the livestock sector development, increase numbers, productivity and usage.

The policy and strategic plan documents came under review in 2012. And livestock breeding was discussed as a theme that needs to be strengthened and enhanced.

Major livestock interventions point towards livestock breeding, but the sub-sector is thinly addressed in the National Livestock Policy document.

This gave rise to the development of the Malawi National Livestock Breeding (draft document) to guide and spearhead livestock development through sustainable breeding.

Presently, Gondwe says breeding is unregulated in Malawi with the absence of the breeding policy. As such, he says all current breeding practices are baseless and without direction, leaving the country in a cycle of intervals of importation.

He says in 1959, selective dairy breeding took place at Mikolongwe where bulls were evaluated on performance and milk yield was by then averaging 14 litres per cow per day.

He says instead of progressing, milk yields are currently average about 10-12 litres per cow per day.

“Beef yields per animal are also declining with time and often this influences feedlots to apply growth promoters,” says Gondwe.

Deputy director in the Department of Animal Health and Livestock Development in the Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation and Water Development, Patricia Mayuni, says most of the paperwork for the National Livestock Breeding Policy has been done.

“The draft document has been put together in consultation with various stakeholders, including researchers, academics and non-governmental organisations.

“We expect to have the policy by October this year after approval by Ministry of Justice and Constitutional Affairs and Parliament,” she says.