Using animal impact for better grazing

Simbra farmer Kobus Bester spoke to Zunel van Eeden about the advantages of high-density grazing, which entails the grouping of high numbers of livestock to graze small areas of land over short periods.

- Zunel van Eeden

With an increasing demand for the production of quality meat and other sources of animal protein, especially given society’s recent focus on increasing the amount of protein included in their daily nutrition, the pressure is on livestock producers to deliver.

For Kobus Bester, breed director at the Simbra Cattle Breeders’ Society of Southern Africa, generational farmer and owner of Vleisberg Simbra near Ventersdorp, North West, this has led him to coming up with alternative production practices to intensify the productivity of each hectare of grazing land and produce well-fed cattle, all without degrading the natural resources.

Bester uses 34,5ha for crop production to meet the daily feeding needs of his Simbra herd. The Simbra was developed by hybridisation of the Brahman and Simmentaler breeds with the goal of producing a hardened cattle breed of good meat quality, and one that was fit for the South African climate. Over the past eight years, Bester has experimented with high-density grazing, a non-traditional form of livestock management that mimics the way in which large numbers of game, such as wildebeest, migrate over huge areas of land like the Serengeti in Tanzania and only return to their previous spot once the grazing has recovered.

HIGH-DENSITY GRAZING

In contrast to the traditional grazing methods of moving livestock from one big camp to another, high-density grazing entails the grouping of high numbers of livestock to graze small areas of land over short periods.

When determining the stocking density, Bester says he considers the number and size of the cattle, as well as the status of their production and reproduction.