Dairy farmers will benefit from animal nutritional minerals to help build the resilience of their animals during drought.
Yara East Africa has launched the Maziwa Pro as part of its animal nutrition solutions initiatives.
This is in a bid to help dairy farmers build resilient herds to survive the drought season.
Richard Baker, MD Yara Animal Nutrition SA, said Maziwa Pro seeks to offer essential trace minerals, which reduce susceptibility to diseases and increase the quality nutritional value and yield of dairy products.
He spoke during the launch of Maziwa Pro.
He underscored Yara’s value proposition in feeding the world by providing quality products that help the farmer generate increased income from high product returns.
“Maziwa Pro is one of the animal nutrition solutions we have developed. Our product development teams put a lot into research, so as to develop such a product that helps dairy farmers increase milk production within three days of onset of use, improve fertility and reduce mineral deficiency diseases amongst the flock,” he said.
Baker said Maziwa Pro contains all the essential trace minerals blended with powdered molasses to improve palatability.
“It also has mono-dicalcium phosphate, salt, feed lime and other trace minerals including Zinc, Iodine, Selenium, Manganese and Cobalt,” he said.
United Nations- Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) says there has been a surge in the use of climate-smart and resource-efficient animal feeding strategies.
In a report on, Animal Nutrition in FAO and Sustainable Development Goals, the UN organisation says this is driven by the high cost of feed, which accounts for up to 70 per cent of the cost of production.
This is also due to feeding production being resource-demanding in terms of land, water and energy.
Furthermore, almost all the sub-sectors and services of the livestock sector get influenced by the manner in which feed is produced and fed.
FAO describes animal nutrition as how feed resources are produced, how the feed is prepared on farms or in the feed industry and how it is fed to meet the nutrient requirements of animals.
Peter Mukua, sales nutritionist at Yara Animal Nutrition said that Maziwa Pro will help lactating dairy cattle have the required nutrients to boost the immunity of their young herds.
“We often see young calves having excessive nasal discharge and watery eyes, this is caused by excessive iodine levels in the milk they feed on," he said.
"Maziwa Pro helps balance the macrominerals found in the dairy feed with the microminerals hence having resilient cattle that can withstand harsh conditions."
