Education for cattle producers – a successful mentorship programme in Namibia

Growing cattle on pasture

The eight northern regions of Namibia have 1.4 million cattle and they are considered to be the major source of Namibia’s livestock industry.

Nevertheless, they contribute only a meagre 6% to the agricultural GDP and less than 10% of the country’s livestock export earnings. One reason is that the northern regions are a Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD) zone, while the South is FMD free. Since the early 1990s, the Namibian Government made huge investments in, e.g., agricultural extension and veterinary centres to improve the situation. However, after more than two decades, it seems that little has been achieved towards changing traditional cattle owners’ perceptions and technically empowering and enabling them to produce beef cattle for the export markets.

To narrow the gap between farmers in the south and north, in the year 2010 the Livestock Producers Forum, in partnership with the Meat Board of Namibia, introduced a voluntary levy of NAD* 16.45 per head of cattle and NAD 3.29 per head of small stock exported to the south. A total of NAD 40 million was collected. This fund was used to implement the Farmers’ Mentorship Programme with the principal goal of increased production and marketing of beef cattle and improvements in the livelihoods of cattle farmers.

The main instrument of the programme is training and mentoring cattle owners to convert to market-oriented systems of cattle farming. 50 farmers in each of the seven regions were selected to be participants in the program. An extraordinary interest on the part of non-selected farmers raised the number of programme participants to 899. The farmers participated in a 10- to 12-month course on market-oriented systems of livestock farming. The course covered, among other things: basic animal husbandry, animal health care, beef cattle selection and improvement, beef cattle classification and pricing, sustainable rangeland management, supplemental feeding, animal welfare and record keeping. 

The main outcomes of the project are then compared with the pre-programme situation (1) 40% more farmers across the programme areas perceive cattle farming as a money-making venture; (2) 44% more farmers have adopted the practice of deworming their animals; (3) 39% of programme participants started feeding licks to their animals, while commercially supplemented animal feeds were previously unknown among the cattle owners, (4) farmers produce annual finance income and expense statements. One of the results was an increase of calving percentages from 35% to 60%.

The dissemination of the improved herd management practices by the participants to non-participating-farmers is high and estimated to have reached 11,500 cattle owners over the three-year evaluation period. Thus, it can be concluded that the programme is successful in changing traditional farmers’ perceptions towards cattle farming.

* Approximately 11 NAD are 1 USD