Stakeholders in the livestock industry have projected an upward growth in livestock numbers, thanks to the commissioning of the country's largest semen processing and cryo-preservation centre at Matopos Research Institute recently.
Commercial Farmers Union (CFU) president, Mr Liam Philp said the move was going to positively impact the livestock industry, as the country comes out of the worst drought in three decades.
"If the semen is affordable, artificial insemination (AI) will significantly help improve both genetics and reproduction rates. It also requires infrastructure and services to transport and inseminate the females," said Mr Philp.
He said the success of the programme requires accessibility and awareness by small holder farmers.
Livestock Meat and Advisory Council (LMAC) executive administrator, Dr Reneth Mano said the investment would increase domestic capacity to harvest and store semen for local marketing.
"The 2023 and 2024 second round of Crops, Livestock and Fisheries Assess (CLAFA 2) reports put the national cattle herd between 5, 4 and 5, 7 million animals respectively with 2, 25 million constituting breeding cows.
"Every year, an estimated 2, 25 million cows are eligible for bulling services," he said.
The survey report shows that the average calving rate based on natural servicing of breeding cows with breeding bulls was between 40 and 45 percent and 60 to 65 percent in the communal areas and commercial farms respectively.
By using both natural services of breeding bulls followed by supplementary rounds of AI done by qualified experts, commercial beef cattle ranches have achieved calving rates as high as 80 percent, he added.
"The potential gain in calving rates from complementing natural bulls with rounds of AI is 15 to 20 percent and 20 to 30 percent for the average commercial cattle producer and average smallholder cattle farmer respectively.
"However, results from the past three years of promoting AI by Government across the country have also demonstrated the importance of good animal husbandry for achieving good conception rates and target calving rates from farmers adopting AI breeding technology," Dr Mano noted.
He said the key to achieving the intended results from these impressive capital investments in AI technology at Matopos, state universities and Zimbabwe Herd Book (ZHB) rested in Government capacitating more veterinary extension and livestock officers to become experts in offering AI services, as part of their normal livestock production extension and advisory services to farmers.
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This development comes hard on the heels of a pledge to donate semen for use in improving the quality of cattle breeds in communal areas by a local stud breeder.
The stud breeder, Mr Obert Chinhamo who resides in the Esigodini area of Umzingwane district in Matabeleland South is the current Simmental Simbrah Society of Zimbabwe president. He pledged to donate semen from part of his stud bulls towards the livestock improvement programme in Zimbabwe.
"I have six stud bulls from which semen can be drawn. The offer to donate will stand as long as there are institutions that are able to harvest the semen from the bulls it in nitrogen tanks," he said.
Mr Chinhamo promised to organise more breeders to donate millions of straws for use in AI but stressed that beneficiaries must be communal not commercial farmers.
