Dairy R&D in SA

South Africa and Kenya rank among the top milk producing countries in Africa, whereas Zimbabwe ranks in the middle. These countries are unique on the continent in that they implement dairy production breeding programmes. South Africa has the highest milk yield per cow, with opportunities to export to other countries. South Africa is also often used as the main reference point for dairy improvement in Africa because countries such as Kenya, Zimbabwe and Rwanda source South African animals to improve their national dairy herds.

Soil health is essential for sustainable agriculture and pasture production; however, there are limited studies that have directly examined the relationship between soil health, pasture productivity as well as the influence of fertilisers concurrently. Therefore, the research by the author cited below addressed the gap in the literature by examining the said relationship.   

Introduction: The world has changed as the evidence and perceptions about climate change have surfaced and progressively became centre in the media and people’s minds. This has lead to questions of what are the reasons for the change which primarily pointed fingers to man-introduced carbon emissions and over-use of resources and waste accumulation. All sectors, including agriculture (therefore dairying), have come under scrutiny.

In a survey among dairy farmers in 2017, it was found that routine evaluation of cows, groups and/or herds for SCC was relatively low at 67% for cows and groups and 53% for whole herd testing. The majority of high SCC cows are however treated. Only 1% of dairy farmers reported to clip or flame udders. Approximately 50% of dairy farms pre-dip, lower than in some other parts of the world and approximately a third of producers either do not strip or wipe and/ or do not use gloves.

There is reason to believe that diurnal patterns for enzymatic activity exist, as bacterial numbers have been shown to be influenced by time of feeding. Also, when performing ruminal in vitro studies, little attention is given to the time of day when rumen fluid is sampled, thereby not controlling variation caused by diurnal patterns and the effect it might have on starch, NDF, and protein digestibility. Additionally, often results are compared between in vitro studies without considering time of rumen fluid collection or feeding time.

Discipline: management;

Replacement heifer rearing is often neglected on dairy farms because for farmers the cost of rearing heifers apparently outweighs the advantage of well grown-out heifers. These advantages manifest in early conception and milk yield. To investigate trends in heifer raising, weights for age as a measure of heifer feeding programs were studied in the Western Cape.

Discipline: breeding;

Discipline: environment: 

Discipline: yogurt; 

Discipline: Performance measurement/milk recording;