Local firm seeks US$1.5m for stock feed project

RUTENDO RORI

A local firm, MoFeed Africa Organic Solutions, is seeking about US$1.5m to expand its organic stock feed project in Wedza District, in Mashonaland East Province, Business Times can report.

 At its plant, MoFeed Africa Organic Solutions is producing duckweed, a floating aquatic plant rich in protein which can be fed to cattle, fish, pigs, chickens, sheep as well as goats.

The company founder and CEO, Phanuel Makoni said the money would fund the production of duckweed for the local market and export in the Sadc region.

The project, which analysts believe is the answer to expensive feed which has resulted in a decrease in dairy milk production, has been embraced by local dairy farmers, organisations like We Effect which is under the European Union for their dairy farmers to boost daily milk production, World Vision under United Nations for their piggery and fish farming projects and Pigad for their layers.

“For us to produce feed for the whole nation, we need US$1.5m to set up ponds and processing hubs in all provinces.

“Once construction of ponds and drying equipment is put in place, within half a year to a year we will reach that. And within two years we can grow enough to even export within the region.

“For dairy cows it helps with boosting milk production while enhancing the milk quality. For beef cattle it provides the highly needed protein boosting higher meat mass and minimising fat,” Makoni told Business Times.

Experts said duckweed is a rich source of proteins and amino acids, and contains many macro- and micronutrients as well as vitamins and carotenoids. 

Fresh or dried duckweed is willingly consumed by animals (poultry – laying hens, broiler chickens, ducks; cows, sheep, goats, swine, fish) and is a valuable protein source to them. 

It has been scientifically demonstrated that its use in moderate amounts or as a partial replacement of other protein feed materials, including soybean meal, has a beneficial effect on the productivity, fattening, and slaughter performance of livestock and poultry as well as on the quality of their meat and eggs.

Makoni said the company was also expecting a €40 000 grant from the EU which would enable the company to produce stock feed at a large scale. 

“Feeding nationally is our vision. We have however started with Wedza.  We will construct more ponds as soon as we get a €40 000 grant from We Effect under the EU.

We are awaiting the release of the grant anytime soon.

“World Vision under the UN, is also working on an SOP [standard operating procedure] so that we start producing feed for their pigs and fish at their Tongogara refugee camp in Chipinge,” Makoni said.

We Effect project coordinator Edson Chifamba said they were focusing on on-farm feed production and the organisation was working with feed entrepreneurs like MoFeed, to mitigate the challenges of high cost of feed.

He said a nutritional profiling of the duckweed showed that it had 38% protein content.

“Before we accept any feed, we first do nutrition profiling of the feed, we test for diet digestibility and degradability and presence of antinutritional factors like saponins and tannins.

“We encourage any dairy feed entrepreneur to contact us for the possibility of funding,” Chifamba said.

“Through our TranZDVC project, a €1m project funded by the European Union, our mandate is to increase efficiency and effectiveness of the Zimbabwe dairy value chain by training farmers, and making funds available for procurement of dairy productive assets.

“We are currently producing 76.7m litres of milk annually against an annual consumption of 130million litres.

“We hope to increase milk production to 120m litres per year.” 

The same weed is being used in Brazil, Jordan, Thailand and many other countries in place of highly expensive commercial feed.