Obert Chifamba

Agri-Insight

IN recent times, cattle seem to be slowly bequeathing their spot on the list of hot merchandise on the illicit market to goats with cases of theft involving the latter becoming regular features in the country’s various media channels.

Such a development should of course get citizens worried given the numerous efforts currently being made to boost production of small livestock units, goats included.

Suffice it to say therefore that this scourge will essentially throw spanners into the numerous efforts being made to commercialise goat farming, which is slowly emerging out of the woods to claim its fair share of the market as one of the most economically empowering activities that do not require the farmer to invest a leg and an arm but just simple commitment and care.

To buttress that perspective, Government will soon be launching a poultry and goats pass-on scheme in Matabeleland North and South, Masvingo and the Midlands provinces, with the rest of the provinces following later in an arrangement expected to benefit about five million households throughout the country. This scheme falls under the Presidential Rural Poultry and Goat Pass-on scheme.

It is no rocket science that such programmes are serving to highlight the importance of goat farming to the Zimbabwean economy even though farmers have been doing it for various reasons from time immemorial.

Recent developments in which cases of goat theft continue to spike make it prudent for urgent action to be taken to contain the vice before it too late. The solution to the scourge should be holistic and involve all stakeholders from the farmer, the law and players in the goat markets. Of course it is difficult to effectively monitor the market because of the sporadic nature of business in most cases but there should be some effort to at least regulate the goings-on in the sector.

Some farmers in Mvurwi recently lost 46 goats to thieves with another nine farmers in Bindura losing 51 goats to thieves travelling in a white commuter omnibus in July. Police confirmed that the thieves went to Chipadze Farm where they stole the goats before loading them onto the omnibus and disappearing. No arrests and recoveries were made.

In another incident, police in Mahusekwa intercepted a green Mercedes Benz Sprinter (registration number ADC 3834), along the Harare-Hwedza Road. The vehicle was loaded with 22 goats at around 2:30am with the suspects refusing to stop after being flagged down by a police patrol team resulting in a high-speed chase that ended with the suspects abandoning the vehicle and fleeing into the night.

The goats were recovered, but no report that they were stolen had been made, which may mean that the goats could have been stolen from a distant place where the owners find it difficult to make follow-ups.

Also, in Gweru police recently arrested a four-member gang from Zhombe that was hunting down villagers’ goats and sheep in the pastures of Lower Gweru, slaughtering them and selling the meat to unsuspecting people.

On average, between 5 000 and 10 000 cases of stock theft have been reported per year in Zimbabwe during the past few years with the ZRP Anti-Stock Theft Unit intensifying campaigns, deployments and community-based initiatives to fight livestock thefts.

The good thing, however, is that the police are also on high alert and investigating the theft cases with national police spokesperson Assistant Commissioner Paul Nyathi confirming that they have since made heavy deployments to thwart the thieving activities.

Mashonaland Central provincial livestock specialist Daniel Kampiyao has also added his voice on the matter urging farmers in the province and countrywide to make it their responsibility to provide security for their goats and leave things to chance.

Kampiyao hinted that at this time of the year goats just roam freely without anyone monitoring them with some even sleeping out of their pens, which is making them easy prey to thieves and sometimes predators. His line of argument makes a lot of sense given that thieves usually do not come from faraway places but may be locals that know people’s habits and capitalise on that or pass on information to thieves from elsewhere to come and do the job.

It is therefore critical for farmers keeping goats to re-evaluate the way they are doing business and where possible boost security even in the pens or have someone regularly checking the goats to see where they will be grazing and when they return for the night. In fact, the farmers should round them up for the night every day.

Farmers can still build goat pens close to their homesteads where they can easily detect anything unusual that happens during the night. It may also make sense to keep dogs that patrol the homestead and its environs during the night while those with the capacity can even install surveillance cameras that will alert them of any suspicious movements at the goats’ pens.

One young Bindura farmer, Terrence Muripo, has installed surveillance cameras to protect his Whoza Boer Goats project at Maston Farm and this kind of innovativeness is what the modern farmer should be looking to achieve. It is also possible for farmers to hire guards or even jointly establish security companies that will provide security on their farms and monitor unusual movements of livestock that may involve strangers in most cases.

That aside, the heavy police deployments should also work with the veterinary department to enforce strict regulations on livestock movements and request movement permits from those transporting animals from any point to another.

In most cases thieves use side roads from the farms from which they would have grabbed their loot to avoid detection so it may be necessary for such roads to be monitored especially by the farmers and relay the information to police.

There are lots of markets for goat products, whose demand farmers will not be able to satiate any time soon, hence the need to scale up production while investing time in ensuring security for the goats too.

It is unfortunate that some farmers have not yet realised that the goats they keep are fast gaining in terms of commercial value and are no longer regarded as objects for transaction that are only important when they are exchanged for money.

Goat farming is very rewarding if done commercially, thanks to the animals’ easy management demands and the availability of cheap feeding options from the natural environment.

The fact that there are no formal goat markets in Zimbabwe with large numbers of goats being sold through informal market systems also needs to be addressed. The available markets are often exceedingly unstable and inefficient, with high transaction costs while market-related information is not readily available to farmers leaving them unaware of when and where they will sell their animals.

In the end they wait for the random buyers with most animals sold at the farm gate without comparable price information, which allows buyers to influence the pricing in the direction they wish. Farmers end up accepting low prices offered by traders while the majority decide to sell goaded by pressing household needs that do not allow them to seek better market options or negotiate good prices.