Animals from a small scale fattener from the Siphofeneni area, Swaziland (photo credit: ILRI/Saskia Hendrickx).
By Andrew Wangili
Improving access to information on production and marketing of cattle is key to helping Swaziland’s smallholder farmers increase incomes from livestock keeping.
According to a brief by the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), the country’s farmers need information on improving feeding and cattle management, in addition to better access to credit, to support income-generating livestock commercializing activities such as cattle fattening.
The brief highlights preliminary findings from a three-year ‘Innovative Beef Value Chain Development Schemes in Southern Africa’ project, started in April 2013, by ILRI and the Swaziland Water and Agriculture Development Enterprise (SWADE) that is seeking to improve and create sustainable smallholder livelihoods from cattle production and marketing. Funded by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), the project focuses on:
- Providing smallholders with a viable cattle value addition mechanisms that respond to market requirements;
- Designing and demonstrating effective financial instruments and products for enabling smallholder value addition in cattle systems; and
- Generating and disseminating knowledge, and encouraging its uptake, throughout the Southern African region.
The study was conducted by ILRI’s researchers Mtimet Nadhem, Saskia Hendrickx and a consultant, Tengetile Mamba, which showed that:
- Producers, fatteners and traders deal with multiple livestock species (cattle, goats, pigs, sheep and chicken).
- Extensive systems are more common among cattle producers and fatteners.
- Few fatteners use stall-feeding system, other cattle producers and cattle fatteners rely mostly on grazing supplemented in the dry season while the use of commercial feed is uncommon among fatteners.
- The three groups have limited access to extension services.
- Knowledge on the use of suitable feed resources to fatten the animals is limited among these groups though access to market information is high.
- Most of cattle fatteners and traders have a bank account compared to 70% of producers. But only half of all the people in the three groups have access to credit for livestock/farming activities due to lack of collateral. Cattle producers and cattle fatteners borrow money mostly from friends and relatives. While majority of the traders prefer getting loans individually and directly from financial institutions.
According to the brief, efforts are underway to develop a business case for a group loan product that targets five groups of cattle producers, fatteners and traders interested in alternative fattening activities using fodder and crop residue.
Download the brief.
Innovative beef value chain development schemes 