STAFIX helps you to make the most of your natural resources D
estruction of our natural grazing takes place at an alarming rate. This tragic fact holds true for countries in Africa, but also for many other countries around the world. The questions are: How? Why? and Is there a solution? Yes, there is a solution, and the straight answer as to the how and why this is happening: it is a combination of greed, ignorance, and bad farming practices. The greed factor has two aspects. First, it is often the greed of absent landowners who mine the land concentrating too much livestock on an area for too long to get as much profit off that area in as short a time as possible. This results in heavy overgrazing and even creeping desertification. Second, there is the greed of having too much land, often inherited, and then under-utilising it, which results in damaging selective grazing. Both practices cause natural pasture degeneration, which in turn results in the invasion of less palatable and less nutritious pioneer species. What can be done to counter this degeneration of our valuable natural asset? Much has, and is being written about high density, or even, ultra-high density rotational grazing systems and the successes that are being achieved around the world by applying these management practices. Explained simply, these systems involve confining a lot of animals to a restricted area for a short period of time, during which they are forced to consume all the foliage available before they are moved onto fresh pasture. The animals can be of mixed species — cattle and sheep - to ensure optimum pasture utilisation. The area is then left, very importantly, to rest, giving all the vegetation species an equal chance to recuperate. Grazing the regrowth too soon will have very detrimental consequences. In effect, what one is doing is imitating nature, before man arrived, when large herds of mixed game grazed off an area and then moved on allowing the grass to recuperate. As already mentioned, this sounds quite simple, but in practice it can be difficult without the right management tools. The question is how does one confine herds in small areas while also preventing them from regrazing the regrowth? Fencing is the obvious answer, but conventional fencing is expensive, and
the quantity needed to apply these systems makes it totally uneconomical. The answer is staring us in the face in the form of the tool dairy farmers have been using for decades to manage their expensive irrigated planted pastures: high-powered electric fencing. Today’s modern, high-powered, low-impedance energisers can power many kilometres of well-constructed livestock fencing. By simply attaching offset wires to one’s existing internal fences, and then tapping off these feeder lines, one can erect either semi-permanent or completely portable, additional fences, and then also sub-divide a property, relatively cheaply, into smaller, more manageable camps. The more camps, the better these systems work. Farmers who use this tool all remark on how their natural pasture has improved, became denser and how their carrying capacity has increased. Later, they reap additional benefits such as a
reduction in disease (parasite life cycles are broken by the quick rotation); there is less damage to hides (only smooth wire is used); the trampling effect of the concentrated hoof action leads to better water retention; and the even spreading of dung across the pasture for fertilisation. Not only does electric fencing facilitate better animal and pasture management, but a well-planned and erected layout is also a highly effective security tool for monitoring the condition of one’s fence lines and thus helps to deter and detect stock theft. Finally, while greed is an inherent problem and difficult to counter, the solution to the problems of ignorance and bad farming practices is education. For future generations to inherit viable pasture, we, the current generation, entrusted with preserving our natural resources, owe it to them to read and learn as much as we can about proven modern farming practices. Stay safe, stay profitable and leave a legacy.
Ensuring that your grassland is well maintained and effectively grazed will help you to keep animals in a better condition with less feeding cost, thus increasing your profit.
Overgrazing is not only harmful to the environment, but will also impact on your profit when additional feed must be bought. Rehabilitating overgrazed fields are expensive.
ProAgri Botswana / Namibia / Zimbabwe 18
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