Welcome to the 25th issue of ZAGP News, the newsletter for the European Union (EU) funded Zimbabwe Agricultural Growth Programme (ZAGP). 

This month’s issue brings updates from the projects under ZAGP as they continue to tackle the various bottlenecks within Zimbabwe’s livestock sector. 

We share how the IPVC project is piloting the first and final mile egg distribution approach, an intervention to reduce costs and improve market linkages for egg farmers. The project has also established a revolving fund to provide access to affordable point of lay chickens to egg producers across the project’s five clusters. 

The ZAKIS project is promoting practices that ensure improved livestock productivity through the District Agricultural Centres of Excellence (DACEs). This issue highlights some of the work being undertaken in Insiza and Matobo districts in Matabeleland South province.

Related to the ZAKIS project, we focus on the Matopos Research Institute’s journey towards becoming a centre of excellence. The research institute is one of the Agricultural Centres of Excellence (ACEs) established by the project and is implementing research research protocols covering crop and livestock production. 

The month of May saw the TranZDVC project achieving a key milestone in the in its quest to boost the national dairy herd through the distribution of in-calf heifers to smallholder farmers. A total of 300 in-calf heifers were distributed in April and May. Cumulatively, 500 in-calf heifers have been distributed and farmers matched with 500 heifers, bringing the total to 1,000. We share the proceedings of two events held to distribute the heifers as part of TranZDVC’s heifer matching facility. 

Under the BEST project, this issue provides an update on services on offer at the Lapache Cattle Business Centre in Mwenezi, Masvingo province. 

The VALUE project is making headway within the goat and pork value chains to ensure access to top-quality genetics by farmers. We share the results of the work with goat and pork value chain integrators where producers now have access to improved breeds and will also be soon accessing Artificial Insemination services. 

Finally, from SAFE, we cover progress made so far in the review of the curriculum for Environmental Health Technicians (EHTs) with the main objective of incorporating new approaches, international best practices on food safety and public health. 

Happy reading!