South Africa

Achievements

Key indicators and performance for 2009-2010

Indicator: An initiative commenced to foster beef market chains through development of branded beef products based on indigenous cattle

Performance: Development of the new initiative depended on the findings of a study ‘Beef palatability in the Republic of South Africa: implications for niche-marketing strategies’. This study experienced logistical problems that delayed completion until early 2010, but the report has now been finalised and published (ACIAR Technical Report 72) and the new initiative is under design, to commence in the first half of 2010–11.

Indicator: Extension of legume crop– livestock technologies and management systems demonstrated, to achieve improved sustainability and profitability for small-scale emerging farms

Performance: 23 experimental demonstrations were sown at 8 communities and on 3 experimental farms in March 2010. An additional 15 ha were established to a legume mix at Dudamashe to complement the 10-ha sowing of 2009. Two new communities joined the program in 2010. A suite of legumes proved adapted to grazing systems on eroded arable lands, with several species broadly adapted across the former Transkei and Ciskei. As a result, the Eastern Cape Communal Arable Lands project plans to release cultivars of Lotononis bainesii and Lespedeza subsericium specifically for the Eastern Cape.

Indicator: Studies commenced on improved maize varieties, and systems developed in targeted southern and eastern African countries suitable for use by small farmer groups in semi-arid zones to achieve enhanced yield, drought and pest/disease resistance

Performance: Under a project on sustainable intensification of maize–legume cropping systems for food security in eastern and southern Africa (SIMLESA), participatory diagnoses have commenced of maize–legume farming and value-chain systems in five targeted countries with the participation of small farmers, extension agents, researchers and agribusinesses. The aim is to increase yields and reduce yield losses from climatic, biotic and other constraints.

Indicator: Progress shown in adoption of improved soil management systems and crop diversification to enhance nutritional security in southern and eastern African countries

Performance: Under SIMLESA progress has been made in three countries in East Africa. In five maize–legume farming systems exploratory trials and demonstrations on farmers’ fields have enabled testing and demonstration of best-bet improved maize and legume varieties and crop systems management technologies selected in cooperation with farmers and farmer groups.

Achievements from the 2009-10 Annual Report

The South African commercial beef market has traditionally focused on producing beef from grainfinished young animals, largely supplied by European crossbreeds and adapted South African breeds. Emerging and communal farmers producing cattle off unimproved country find it very difficult to meet the requirements to enter their animals into the feedlot system. However, if there was a niche market, focused on flavour rather than tenderness, farmers could sell beef from older, nonfeedlot animals. A recent project undertook a comparison between the meat of South African and Australian commercial cattle and South African indigenous cattle to compare flavour and texture. A sensory testing, involving urban and rural consumers from South Africa, took place in August 2009. The results are recorded in ACIAR Technical Report 72, Beef palatability in the Republic of South Africa: implications for niche-marketing strategies, which will form the basis of an initiative to start in 2010–11.

Increasing the income of smallholder wool producers in RSA’s Eastern Cape has been a focus of national and provincial efforts. This has included wool and sheep management and wool classing, resulting in increased incomes. The main constraint to continued growth is pasture quantity and quality. Pastures generally do not support animal production as well as they do in similar conditions elsewhere. A project is introducing legumes adapted to such conditions along with populations of beneficial rhizobial bacteria and improved management strategies. Since 2007 the project has sown 23 experimental demonstrations in eight communities and on three experimental farms, and conducted training courses on sowing and inoculation of pasture legume seeds. In RSA grazing of the legumes has begun on a 10-ha site at Dudamashe, and experimental data have been accumulated for legume biomass, persistence and nitrogen fixation at Dudamashe and Lushington. After three seasons of observations from legume sowings, it is evident that several annual and perennial legumes are well adapted to both the edaphic conditions and the grazing management.