Tackling the future challenges of Organic Animal Husbandry - vTI

RAHMANN G & GODINHO D (Ed.) (2012): Tackling the Future Challenges of Organic Animal Husbandry.
Proceedings of the 2 nd OAHC, Hamburg/Trenthorst, Germany, Sep 12-14, 2012
production. Sound grazing planning allows for the optimal supply of all nutrients for the animals’
needs. To a certain degree this can eliminate the need for urea.
Farm Springbockvley is watching with great interest the developments on farm Oasis just to the
other side of the Namibian border with Botswana in the Ghanzi area. Here the Barnes family are
practicing Holistic Management planned grazing for over 10 years as well, running very large
herds of cattle (up to 2000 cows in one herd). Although the soil (Kalahari sandveld) is similar, the
average rainfall is higher and the vegetation composition also different from Springbockvley. On
Oasis a higher animal density is achieved by combining 2000 LSU in camps between 188 and 558
hectares with most around 300 hectares and therefore an average density of 6.5 animals per hectare
on a given day they are grazing in a camp. This higher animal density and herd effect may well
have led to improving the growing conditions and with that the remarkable spread of Brachiaria
Negropedata, arguably the most nutritious and palatable perennial grass found in Southern Africa.
Brachiaria tufts, if managed well, produce some green shoots nearly the whole year round on farm
Oasis. Together with the diversity of browse from nitrogen rich shrub leaves, livestock have access
to a carbohydrate-protein balanced diet and can grow muscle and produce more milk even during
the dry months. This led to the Barnes’ decision to stop supplementing their animals with urea three
years after starting with Holistic Management planned grazing. (Volkmann 2010)
Nevertheless on farm Springbockvley with its lower rainfall in many years during the dry season an
optimal digestion of the “standing hay” may not be given due to high fibre content and low nutritional
density. In the absence of organically produced protein feeds, GMO-free oil cakes from nonorganic
sources may well be used but are still expensive and not widely accessible. Given that most
parts of the dry country are unsuitable for crop production (soybeans or else), further (market) research
on alternative protein sources might be crucial to sustain healthy and well-fed organic animals.
(Barrow, Binding and Smith 2010) In 2011 Judith Isele and Ekkehard Külbs decided to replace
urea with milled Acacia Erioloba pods which are mixed with the mineral lick.
For the time being, Ekkehard and Judith see the limiting factor for progress on Springbockvley still
in the ability of the animals to perform exclusively on the resources present on the farm. Another
factor for limited animal condition on Springbockvley is the very low species diversity of the grasses,
where 90 % of the grasses are formed by only two relatively narrow leaved species: the perennial
Stipagrostis Uniplumis and the annual Schmidtia Kalahariensis. With all the emphasis on grazing
management over so many years, there is still no easily evident increase in diversity. In conjunction
with a planned research project a portion of the farm will possibly be subdivided into smaller paddocks
to increase the animal density in the hope of this leading to a change in plant composition,
similar to farm Oasis.
In the meantime Springbockvley management takes into account that the current market situation
does not encourage the conversion to organic production. Domestic markets for organic meat are
negligible and provide for little growth potential. Their European counterparts are solely accessible
through expensive third party certification toward EU-equivalent standards. The South African outlets
are not yet well surveyed, but might provide some viable markets. In all these markets it is
questionable if substantial premiums for organic meat are achievable. At any rate most demands
relate to organic beef rather than mutton (Barrow, Binding and Smith 2010).
References
Barrow, S., Binding, H., and Smith, M. (2010): Assessment of the Potential of Organic Meat Production and
Markets for Namibia. Study conducted for the Meat Board of Namibia by Future Earth cc, Namibia.
Idel, A. (2006): Agro-Biodiversity and Animal Breeding – Endangered by Global Privatisation. Proceedings
of the 1st IFOAM International Conference on Animals in Organic Production, p. 88-95. IFOAM,
August 2006.
Idel, A. (2011): Cows are not climate killers! Ecology & Farming, No. 4, August 2011, p. 16-19.
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