New electronic animal tags may give a major boost to emerging farmers in the Eastern Cape by curbing the scourge of stock theft and controlling disease.
The tags will store crucial information, including an animal’s date of birth, its owner’s details and what medicine it had been fed.
The initiative is being piloted in 13 villages across the province, including four in Mhlontlo.
Rural development & agrarian reform MEC Xolile Nqatha was at the official launch in Mdeni village in Qumbu on Tuesday.
The programme is the brainchild of his department, in partnership with the University of Fort Hare, and forms part of the broader provincial agriculture economic transformation strategy.
Nqatha said in Sulenkama alone – a small area in Qumbu – 248 stock theft cases were reported between March 2017 and March 2018.
He said the tags may curb the theft of livestock as ownership could then be proved. But it could also help small-scale farmers – even those in remote areas like Mdeni – to produce quality meat to sell.
“Livestock is not something to brag about in shebeens. You can actually make money from your cattle,” Nqatha told farmers.
“We don’t want you to remain emerging farmers, we want you to arrive.”
After the pilot phase, the programme would be rolled out to the rest of the province, he said.
There are about 30,000 small-scale farmers in the Eastern Cape. Once loaded onto the department’s database, they would be able to track their livestock. Each district would then be allocated a different colour tag.
The department is in the process of building feedlots across the Eastern Cape, including one in Mhlontlo, where grassfed cattle could be taken once they reached a certain stage.
They would then be scientifically fed to ensure that their meat was of the highest standard.
He said some farmers would even be supported with bulls to help improve the livestock.
Vuyani Somyo from the University of Fort Hare’s Nguni Cattle Development Trust, said the electronic devices would also help monitor disease.
But what set the system apart, according to Somyo, was that each village had different dip tank numbers.
“All cattle will now be on the database and if there is an outbreak of a disease we will know which area is the epicentre,” Somyo said.
To date, about R1.3m has been spent on the electronic tags.
Many farmers sounded upbeat about the initiative, claiming to have been victims of stock theft for years.
Among them was Zoliwe Nombewu, 40, of Gotyibeni village in Tsolo.
She said five years ago, her entire herd of 20 cattle was stolen.
She and her husband had to start over from scratch.
Then, last year, three of their cattle were stolen.
The pair own 200 sheep and 20 cattle. But Nombewu believes they would have at least 500 cattle by now if it wasn’t for stock theft.
“We want to go big but we are scared. You can’t own more than 20 cattle at a given time because they will be stolen,” she said.
A member of the Gqili-Mdeni Farmers’ Association in Qumbu, Dumile Makaula, said Qumbu was infested with livestock thieves.
He lost five rams and four head of cattle to rustlers last year.
“Thousands of animals are stolen here in Qumbu every year. I would even say more than 3,000,” Makaula said.
He added that they were appreciative of the initiative by Nqatha and the University of Fort Hare, and hoped the project would bear fruit...