McDonald, I.W.

English

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S. Afr .  J .  Anim.  ScL I ,  165-167 (1971)IMPRESSIONS OF ANIMAL PRODUCTION IN SOUTH AFRICAWITH PARTICULAR REFERENCE TO BIOLOGICAL RESEARCH*I.W. McDonaldC.S.I.R.O. Division of Animal Physiology Prospect, New South Wales, Australia**In the title of this paper the accent is on 'iimpres-sions"; it would be quite impossible for anyone to evaluatethe national problems of this country and arrive at soundlybased opinions after such a brief period of study. However,it is hoped that the reactions of an outside observer may behelpful in stimulating within the Society discussions thatmay lead to further advancement of the animal sciencesand of animal production in South Africa. During the pasthalf century, South African investigators have made verygreat contributions to both animal health and productioncontributions of importance not only nationally, butto knowledge that can be applied in many other countries.There is no reason to doubt that the coming decades willsee equally important developments; discussions that willassist he planning of future work will be repeatedly needed.There is a general tendency to overlook the fact thatanimal husbandry is a part of agriculture. Even the highlyintensive systems of pig and poultry production, to whichwe are rapidly becoming accustomed, are part of agriculture -it is merely that the animal production is spatially separat-ed from the land on which the feedstuffs are produced. ltcan be confidently predicted that large-scale, "factory-type" production of pigs and poultry will steadily in-crease in this countryi the managers of these enterpriseswill have little difficulty in acquiring technical informationfrom all the advanced countries of the world, and will haverelatively little need for local research and developmentwork. Of course, small-scale production will also remainon very many farms; it is doubtful, however, whethersuch forms of production merit any great expenditure ofresources on research, as the use of advanced technologywill be difficult or impossible on such farms.Our special interest for the future lies in the pastoralindustries. Here we face the difficulties that each farm re-presents an ecosystem of great complexity and that thestudy of the pastoral system needs an inter-disciplinaryapproach. It is doubtful whether any country has success-fully resolved the problems involved in organizing theintegrated research reams needed for pastoral research.Specialist research has been so successful in arable agri-culture that most workers find difficulty in accepting thevery different problems posed by pastoral systems. At thistime we can simply note the difficulty and endeavour towork towards improved arrangements.As mentioned earlier in this Conference, we must beprepared, in future, to modify our production systems toproduce the type and quality of commodities that themarkets need; it is no longer sufficient to produce whatwe can and hope that a remunerative market for theproduct can be found. Again, compared with arable agri-culture, the pastoral system presents far greater difficultyin producing efficiently the precise commodity needed fora given consumer demand.Agricultural production in South Africa seems to meto present a truly daunting dilemma. On the one hand mostof the production derives from farmers of Europeandescent; many of these farmers have land of insufficientproductivity to yield an adequate income; many farmerswill have to leave the land; others will increase the size oftheir holdings, will need to develop higher skills, and willhave to be serviced with improved technical informationfrom research and extension workers. On the other hand,for political and sociological reasons, there is the trend toincrease the number of Bantu farmers with very smallareas of land, small incomes, and unsophisticated tech-nologies. The contrast is enhanced by the historical situationthat the major European farming is in the lower rainfallzones, while the Bantu developments are largely in thehigher rainfall areas. Clearly, this situation poses uniqueproblems for national research, development and extensionwork - and, clearly, a long time will be needed to resolvethese problems.A matter of great importance for the future is thequestion of national self-sufficiency in food production -especially foods of animal origin. Of course, many countrieswould welcome the opportunity of exporting foodstuffsto South Africa; however, few countries will adopt anofficial policy of restricting food production in favourof importing cheap foods - to my knowledge, only Swedenhas so far adopted such a policy, which can only be success-ful when adequate income from exports can be assured. If itcan be assumed that South Africa will aim at self-sufficiency, it seems inevitable that much more effort will*This paper records the substance of an address to the South African Society of Animal Production at the termination of afive week visit to South Africa, sponsored and arranged by the Society; it represents a continuation of the first day's proceed-ings ofthe 1971 Conference on June 9th. The author takes this opportunity of expresing his deep appreciation to the Societyfor its invitation and to the very many members who have helped to make the visit both instructive and memorable.**Postal address: P.O. Box 239, Blacktown, N.S.W., 2148, Australia1 6 5have to be expended in studying the problems of increasingthe productivity of land in the high rainfall regions. For verygood reasons, the emphasis in past years has been on thedrier regions, where the scope for increased production isnow small; there is no reason to doubt that production inthe high rainfall zones can be greatly increased above thepresent levels.As a foreign observor, I see another very difficultproblem your country is experiencing: in effect, you mustdraw the whole of your intellectual talent from only about2O /' of your population. Probably no other highly develop-ed community is confronted with such a problem and itseems evident that it will be a long time before this situationis changed. Two consequences are noteworthy. Firstly, itwill be difficult to continue recruiting talented youngpeople to the animal sciences - so many other avenues willbe open to them; I would pose for you the followingquestions concerning research staff: Is enough effortbeing made to recruit talented workers from other coun,tries, and in particular, to attract expatriot South Africansback to tlreir homeland? Is there adequate opportunityto promote staff on the basis of personal merit as opposedto responsibility for other staff or for administrative duties?Is there any impediment to a worker moving from oneorganization to another in order to fulfill his ambitions?Secondly, the human resources available must be used asefficiently as possible. No doubt there are many waysin which existing talents could be used to better effect;my own experience in South Africa has been too limitedfor firm opinions to be formulated. However, Dr. Bons-ma examined this question in his Presidential address atBloemfontein and has made numerous recommendationsfor study by the Society. My only comment is to agreewith Dr. Bonsma that there is a strong case for an "Agri-cultural Research Council" to guide the development andintegration of research resources.My observations lead me to suggest that there is animbalance in the resources used for research in animalproduction. No doubt there are good political and historicalreasons for the present situation, but I venture the opinionthat, relative to the amount of laboratory research, toomuch resource has been allocated to field stations. Frompersonal experience, I know how expensive it is to financethe basic facilities on field stations and I would seriouslyquestion the policy of having few, or even no, profession-al officers located at field stations. While granting thatthe field stations can play a useful role in extension, itis stressed that most of the new developments will comethrough the professional workers inthe research laboratoriesand the universities; inadequate resources for these workerswill slow down the acquisition and application of newtechnologies.Another impression of significance to me is thevery large numbers of breeds of cattle and sheep in thiscountry. No doubt we would have had the same situationin Australia had it not been that the importation of animalshas long been inhibited by quarantine regulations. I takeit for granted that where there is a multiplicity of breeds,it is likely that many have no special advantages to offer.In itself, this is harmless enough, but it has severalunfortunate consequences: (a) the rate of genetic im-provement in each breed is likely to be slow; (b) anenormous amount of effort can be expended in breedcomparisons - comparisons that may, in the end, proveto be of very dubious validity; (c) there is a tendency topreserve an accent on "fancy points" at the expense ofemphasis on productive characteristics; and (d) there isa danger that a farmer will look to a change of breed toimprove productivity when, in fact, he should be criticallyexamining his farm management and husbandry. If thereis a solution to the problem of multiplicity of breeds, Ido not know of it.This country shares with most others of the so'called"western world" the very difficult problem of decidingjust what the extension services of the Department ofAgriculture should be aiming to achieve. Much technicalinformation and advice now flows to farmers from com-mercial organizations. A new profesion of agriculturdconsultants is offering its services to individual farmers and,as mentioned above, we have to recognize that many of thepresent farmers have inadequate resources and will eitherhave to leave their farms or accept a declining standard ofliving. Again, no ready solutions are available - clearly it isnecessary for all groups who are interested in animal pro-duction to give serious consideration to the policies thatare most likely to fit the future requirements of a steadilychanging agricultural system.In both our countries we are currently confrontedwith the question of control of research policy for theanimal industries. There has been a tendency to have anincreasing influence played by representatives of farmers'interests exerted either through industry funds or advisorycommittees. The desirability of this trend is at presentunder critical review in Australia and I expect that similarexamination will be necessary in South Africa. It is my ownopinion that the scientists themselves are best capable ofdeciding the directions that research should take; it is notdifficult for these scientists to keep in touch with the needsof industry and to receive the opinions of leaders in thefarming community.I have been particularly impressed with an apparentdifference between our two countries in our attitude toresearch on pasture improvement. In those parts of Austra-lia where rainfall is adequate for the growth of crops, verygreat increases in pasture and animal production have beenachieved by the use of fertilizers and introduced plantspecies for pasture improvement. This is especially true ofthe southern regions with predominantly winter rainfallwhere, until recent years, most of the research has beenconcentrated. In the more difficult tropical and sub-tropical areas with predominantly summer rainfall, majorresearch programmes are under way to solve the specialproblems of these regions. By contrast, it seems to me that166in South Africa, too much emphasis has been placed on thepreservation of the so-called "natural pastures" and onlya few workers have concentrated on modifying pasturesto enable increased animal production. I believe that greatscope exists here for fruitful research.As one who has always been interested in South Afric-an research on animal health and production, I would makea plea for the publication of all your scientific papers inthe Englistr language. It is probable that many of you under-estimate the interest taken in your work by scientists inother countries. These scientists, at least those in the west-ern world, rarely have any difficulty in handling publica-tions in English, French, German or Spanish; transla-tions can usually be readily obtained. Hence I concludethat, as English is an official language here, it strouldpresent your scientists with very little inconvenience topublish research papers in that language.My observations and conversations during my visithere have served to confirm that our countries have a greatmany common problems in the field of animal production.While much can be achieved by reading each other's litera-ture, it remains true that great benefits can accrue from ex-change of visits. I am particularly grateful for the oppor-tunity afforded me to see so much of South Africa andSouth-West Africa and feel that I have obtained an insightinto your problems that could never have been gleanedfrom reading alone. In both our countries, we have tendedto look to the northern hemisphere when an opportunityarose for travel - I believe that we should now encouragemuch more visitation between the countries of the southernhemisphere where we have so much in common in ouragricultural problems.r67

Impressions of animal production in South Africa with particular reference to biological research

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Impressions of animal production in South Africa with particular reference to biological research

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