aistand south~ern afrkca - (PDF, 101 mb) - USAID

-Table 3 Means for total lactation milk yield,
lactation length, milk yieldper lactation day
and dry period in smallholder dairy herds
InMalawi, 1973-83.
Loatca-on nL-aUon Mik
Verba NO. yield Iefgth yiWk
(kg) (d~ya) day (kg)
Overl 781 2 18 392 6.7
AThe
Ow" soth 59 2 147 391 5.4
BhinONo.h 189 1761 417 4.3
ChutdruLJ 114 2085 376 5.7
Thyao North 225 2513 390 6.1
Mulan Wet 126 1S6 361 5.2
Zfrab 68 2772 417 7.1
Brodpw
1/2 Fri lan ISM 13 382 5.
34Frisan 227 2424 401 6.2
8oue: Agyemang and Nkhon/era (1986A
becauve of farmers' unwillingness to sell excess
stock.
Smallholder dairying is further constrained
by the general lack of contact between farmers
and extension workers. The establishment of
cooling centres or milk collection centres was
partly intended to increase contacts between
extensionists and farmers as farmers deliver
their milk to such centres. This has resulted in
extension agents spending time at the cooling
centres instead of visiting farmers. Furthermore,
farmers tend to send children or
employees to deliver milk. The low contact rate
is sometimes compounded by the low mobility o1
extensionists due to a lack of transport and fuel.
Availability of feed of sufficient quality is
usually limiting, so that the level of nutrition of
cows is not commensurate with the quality ofthe
cows. Even when feeds are available, the animal
husband, y extension workers lack knowledge of
formulating suitable diets to optimise the use of
available resources. Herd health support
services are also inadequate. East Coast fever
receives a great deal of attention. However,
gastro-intestinal parasites and pneumonia,
particularly in calves, are often more important.
Despite these constraints, dairying,
especially among smallholder farmers, has
continued to grow at an estimated rate of 15 to
30%a year. There are now 22 estates supplying
milk to MDI as opposed to seven estates in 1984.
Such growth reflects the commercial viability of
dairying in Malawi.
147
Suggested framework for future
development
Although Malawi has achieved some impressive
development in smallholder dairying, issues
such as availability of cows, inputs, training and
mobility of extension agents need to be
addressed for future development.
high annual growth of dairying and the
demand for dairy cattle implies that dairying is
socially or commercially viable. This situation
warrants intervention by the Government in
supplying dairy cows and in considering the
privatisation of multiplication farms producing
foundation dairy cattle.
The Government should continue encouraging,
if not supporting, the development and
growth of the Milk Producers Association of
Malawi. Such an association ought to be
encouraged to grow to such an extent that it
would be able to enter into such ventures as feed
milling. This would enable farmers to control
feed costs and alleviate feed shortages. To
strengthen dairying or herd health support
services, the Association could hire private
veterinarians and purchase drugs in bulk,
thereby reducing this expense. An integrated
policy of privatisation of Government farms
might increase the availability of cows and consequently
reduce the price of cows.
TenGoer eds to make a
The Government also needs to make a
deliberate policy of establishing cooling centres
powered by electricity instead of diesel engines,
as costs of maintaining diesel engines are high.
The frequent breakdowns of diesel engines also
leads to wastage of large volumes of milk.
Frequent wastage ofmilk is a cost to ,irmers and
this might affect dairying negatively in the long
run.
Poor extension services in animal husbandry
is caused partly by inadequate practical training
of the extension workers. It appears that the
extension agents lack skills in making simple
ration formulations based upon available
ingreda3,ts. Lack of practical training tends to
reduce confidence in such agents so that instead
of being pragmatic about their work they tend to
avoid real issues and discuss them only in
general terms. It is proposed that extension
agents should be given better practical training
in colleges and that those already in the field
should be given in-service courses or on-the-job
training in fields of their main weakness (such
as feeds and feeding).
The mobility of extension agents in the field
also needs to be reviewed. The extension agents
are normally issued with either a bicycle or
motorcycle and given allowances of about 20
litres of fuel per month. It is proposed that such
cycles should be sold to the extension agents at
duty-free prices and the Government should only
pay the officers a kilometrage allowance that
would be sufficient to maintain the cycle and to