Zambia Agribusiness Society

For producers to benefit from the growing national and international demand for live goats and goat products, it is essential to have healthy flocks. Dr Alan Rowe, chief state veterinarian for the Harry Gwala District Municipality, shares tips on goat health management. The profitability of a goat enterprise depends largely on the animals’ health and productivity. It is crucial, therefore, that a goat farmer has the skills to identify an animal in poor health, diagnose the illness and treat it, or obtain assistance from other knowledgeable goat farmers, state animal health officials or private vets. The key is to act swiftly. “While the advice that follows can be helpful, the diagnoses and treatment policies are not carved in stone. They need to be tested and adapted where necessary because of the varying goat production conditions across the country,” cautions Dr Alan Rowe, chief state veterinarian for the Harry Gwala District Municipality. Prevention is always better than cure, and i...

Technology has become a dominant part of our everyday lives and our food production system is no exception. Accordingly, since the turn of the 20 th century, the standard approach to production has shifted from extensive production to intensive production as businesses have opted to replace natural services with technology. In this respect, intensive livestock production systems  use higher amounts of labour and physical capital [e.g. machines] relative to the land area where production takes place. The physical capital and human labour aim to replace the need for free space, grazing area, and natural sources of water. To replace natural inputs with technological alternatives, it is necessary to rely on inputs produced thousands of kilometres/miles away – a factor that maintains agricultural dependency on fossil fuels. Animal feeding operations [AFOs] and concentrated animal feeding operations [CAFOs]   are the most notorious examples of intensive livestock product...

Aquaculture is the rearing of aquatic organisms in an enclosed water body under controlled conditions. Aquatic organisms may be plant life such as phytoplankton, lilies, and other forms of algae or animal life such as fish, crocodiles , oysters etc. Controlled conditions include physio-chemical water parameters (dissolved oxygen, temperature, pH, phosphorus, etc.), water level, as well as feed. The basic idea here is to imitate what is prevailing in the natural waters so as to achieve optimum yields. African aquaculture is growing in terms of intensity and pr oductivity. The main types of investors are commercial and non-commercial. Within these domains, there exists a wide range of investment strategies from small to large-scale. Two main groups dominate; large-scale commercial producers and small-scale artisanal producers. For small-scale artisanal producers, aquaculture increases revenues, crop diversity and ecological sustainability, while lowering risk and improv...

Introduction The transplanting process can be a shock to rapidly growing seedlings especially when set out into the cold windy garden in the spring. This is especially true for transplants started in the greenhouse, cold frame, hotbed or home. These young seedlings can be made somewhat resistant to heat, cold temperatures, drying and whipping winds, certain types of insect injury, injury from blowing sand and soil particles and low soil moisture by a process termed “ hardening .” The term “ hardening ” refers to any treatment that results in a firming or hardening of plant tissue. Such a treatment reduces the growth rate, thickens the cuticle and waxy layers, reduces the percentage of freezable water in the plant and often results in a pink colour in stems, leaf veins and petioles. Such plants often have smaller and darker green leaves than non-hardened plants. Hardening results in an increased level of carbohydrates in the plant permitting a more rapid root development than occurs...

Crop rotation is “the practice of alternating the annual crops grown in a specific field in a planned pattern or sequence so that the crops of the same species or family are not grown repeatedly without interruption on the same field.” US National Organic Program definition. Or, leaving soil in the best position it can be for continuing/next crops – that includes cover crops, rotations, green manures, catch crops etc. Six Benefits of Crop Rotation in Agriculture 1. Preventive Pest Management: Crop rotation may limit the growth of populations of agricultural pests including insects, nematodes, and diseases caused by bacteria, viruses, and fungi through regular interruption and replacing crop host species with different plant species that do not serve as hosts. The use of specific crop and cover crop rotations may also be used to control pests through allelopathy, an interference interaction in which a plant releases into the environment a compound that inhibits or stimulat...