Rumbidzayi Zinyuke Manicaland Bureau
A CHIPINGE farmer has offered 100 breeding bulls from his stock to the Government’s Command Livestock, Fisheries and Wildlife Programme in a move meant to promote the revitalisation of the national herd.

Mr Dawie Joubert, who runs the Lupard’s Vlei Farm in Chipinge, told First Lady Auxillia Mnangagwa during a tour of his farm recently that he had already engaged Minister of Lands, Agriculture and Rural Resettlement Perrance Shiri on the matter.

“Your Excellency, last year we were affected by a bad case of foot and mouth disease, so we have been under quarantine since August,” he said. “We cannot move our herd from Chipinge district into other provinces.

“We have 100 bulls here and we are hoping to donate these to the Command Livestock programme. I have engaged Minister Shiri on two occasions and I hope that we will have another chance to discuss the issue further so that these bulls can be integrated into the programme.”

Besides the 100 bulls, Mr Joubert has a herd of 1 000 cattle, which he hopes to grow in the near future.
He said the farm downsized its herd from 4 000 in 2000 when it gave up part of its land to Government’s land reform programme.

“We acknowledge that there was an imbalance in the distribution of land before the land reform programme, so we gave up our land willingly,” said Mr Joubert.

“But now we realise that the national herd has dwindled and needs to be beefed up, so we want to do increase our herd in line with Government’s initiative.

“Our endeavour is to go back to the size we used to have.”
Mr Joubert said he would engage Government and request for more land that would allow them to increase their stock.
“Rearing cattle on a large-scale requires land so we hope to engage Government to request for more land so that we can grow the herd,” he said. “We cannot do that on the land we have currently.”