Maravi

(ZIMPAPERS) 230 on dairy training programme

230 on dairy training programme
Thursday, 14 October 2010 07:41 Agriculture

The Department of Livestock Produ-ction and Agritex have embarked on a programme to train 230 farmers from Nharira and Sadza Dairy schemes in the Chikomba District of Mashonaland East.

In an interview on Tuesday, Chiko-mba livestock specialist, Mr Cosmas Ratsakatika, said 160 of the farmers would be from Nharira and the remainder from Sadza.
“The training is aimed at reviving production levels that had dipped from 1 000 litres a day to the current 150 litres a day,” Mr Ratsakatika said.

He said they were training farmers on the basics of increasing fodder and silage production and use. “The training will also enable farmers to practice proper record keeping, adopt right feeding and culling methods to boost herds while keeping their focus on increasing the calving percentage from 34,5 percent to 40 percent,” Mr Ratsakatika said.

Apart from this, the farmers will also be trained on feed formulation, clean milk production and proper storage procedures. To this end, the Ministry of Health and Child Welfare has also been roped in to take care of sanitary training requirements.

Mr Ratsakatika said a district management team — comprising representatives from different Government departments — would train farmers on handling of finances and marketing. After the training, farmers are also expected to up their daily yields from 1, 9 litres per day per head to more than eight litres.

Apart from directly boosting their incomes, they are also expected to start a yoghurt making business. The training began on Monday and will run until December.

“The first day recorded over 50 farmers at Nharira while 35 commercial dairy producers also received training at their farms. “The response was just overwhelmi-nging,” Mr Ratsakatika said.

Labels: DAIRY, NEW FARMERS, YOGHURT

posted by MrK @ 4:28 PM