GENERAL REPORT

DESCRIPTION OF THE FPT STATION

INCLUDING:

The University Farm was established in 1964 under the collage of Morogoro
Agricultural collage to play a vital role in the Training, provision of facilities for research and
demonstration. From 1969 the collage was elevated to Faculty of Agriculture, Forestry and
Veterinary Medicine. Morogoro campus of the University of Dar es salaam. In July 1984
Sokoine University of Agriculture (SUA) was established.

The Mazimbu farm is located in Solomon Mahlangu Campus six kilometers

Northwest of Morogoro Municipality. The Farm comprises about 1,000 hectares in Mazimbu
Campus.

The existing Farm facilities are for field crop production and pasture production. Others
include Animal husbandry; these are Dairy, Piggery, poultry and animal feed plant..

The Farm is further equipped with six storage silos with a total storage capacity of
1050 tons, the Garage with various agricultural equipments.

MAZIMBU FARM VISION AND MISSION

 VISION
The Mazimbu Farm vision is to have a Farm which will be resourceful center of excellence in
income generation in agricultural industry and provision of facilities for practical skills,
research and demonstration to the public at large.
 MISSION
The Mazimbu Farm mission is to provide a basis for the Farm to fulfill its function of income
generation, and to provide research and training facilities to students and staffs.

DESCRIPTIONS OF DEPARTMENTS

The Farm organization and management comprise of the farm manager responsible to
the farm management board, interprets the board’s policy and decision and also the
administrative and finance. Thus, he coordinates the implementation of on-going farm
activities through the farm executive committee. The units in-charges of Dairy unit , piggery
unit, Crop production unit , Pasture production units and Garage. And other workers
including herdsman, Machine operators, milkers, Field attendants and watchmen.
 ORGANIZATION STRUCTURE CHART

Farm Management Board

Fa rm Ma n a g e r

Cro p u n it Live s t o c k Un it Fin a n c e / Ad m in is t ra t io n Un it

S e c t io n In c h a rg e

Farm Executive Committee

Herdsmen Milkers Watchmen Field Tractor

DAIRY UNIT:

Mazimbu dairy farm contains a total number 250 of Cattle. Which are Cows 64 ,Dry
Cows 23, Heifer 15,Yearling 55,weaner Males 18 weaner Females 22,Male calves 7,Female
calves 13, Breeding Bulls 1,Steers 32. At Mazimbu farm there are two breeds of animals
available which are Friesian and Ayrshire.
PIGGERY ENTERPRISES:
The Mazimbu farm was engaged on production of piggery but after the outbreak of diseases
of African swine fever on July 2017 about 500 pigs died from the disease. The farm decides
to shut down the program for while. The now vacant piggery unit has a capacity to carry
between 1,000 and 1,500 pigs. It consists of the necessary structures which include the
breeding, farrowing, weaners, growers, fatteners, finishers houses and a slaughter slab. In
most cases minor repairs on these structures may be required. Since the piggery were more
important for generate the income the farm Manager decided to write the proposal of
revamping of the program since it’s contain the different building for conducting the
program. The piggery installed infrastructural capacity is approximately 30 sows.

GARAGE AND MACHINERY:

Mazimbu farm garage is type two garage because it consist of Agriculture Field officer and it
only provide the shelter for the equipment and machines such as tractors and involves only
with repair of those machines only and not design new machines. Mazimbu garage it medium
size which can store the several machines
The unit will hire tractors, caterpillar and other machinery and equipment. In addition to that,
it will service these machinery and equipment.

Mazimbu garage is local due to lack appropriate management so this led to many broken
machines to stay long enough without to perform their activities for example there are many
broken tractors that stay at that garage due to lack the financial to revamping again those
machines
PASTURE UNIT:
The unit involves storing pasture which has large capacity storage of pasture because it store
pasture in form of hay bail. The pasture type produced are Chloris gayana, Cenchrus Ciliaris
and Banner grass. This is the important section for the animal which provides the fodder and
some legumes to feeds the animals with quality production in order for the animal to increase
productivity in the farm.

CROPS STORE:
The University farm has store which used to store crops after harvest their crops from the
field for future uses. The store used to storing of the following crops maize and millet. The
crop units is essential units which provides raw material for the production of feeds to the
animal for making the concentrates and meet the balanced ration of the animal feeds.
CROP UNIT
The Farm Crop Production unit consists of three main sections which include
Field Crops, Pastures and Fencing and Fruit tree seedlings nursery. In field crops the farm
involves in production of maize and millet. The University farm has several hectors for
production of maize and millet which is used for feeding the University animal and not for
sell. The farm produce 66 tons of maize depend on the certain season .In the section of
pasture and fencing the farm has already prepare the budget for fencing the pasture area in
order to prevent the conflict with the other community such as Maasai use to graze in the
University farm area for grazing the cattle illegally, the farm decide to construct a temporary
fence to their area so the farm provide their own pasture and store them in their pasture
unit .The products that will be produced include hay and pasture seeds from mainly Chloris
gayana and others being Cenchrus Ciliaris and several legumes . The last section is fruit tree
seedlings the farm produce the varieties mangoes and avocadoes seedling which are grafted
and varieties of citrus seedlings which have been budded.

DESCRIPTION OF ACTIVITIES PERFORMED BY STUDENT AT THE STATION

During my field practical I performed different activites daily which includes morning and
late evening assessment of animals in order to observe their healthy status daily and report
any cases found to the animals, Milking of dairy cow early morning and late evening, Bucket
feeding to the calves, general cleanliness of dairy unit in order to provide comfortably of the
animal an avoids contamination of the dung and make sure the waste disposal are well
preserved as manure, treatments of animal, supervision of student on their field practical
section, keeping milk records produced daily in the milk distribution sheet and inserting the
data in the Microsoft excel.

CHALLENGES FACING THE STATION

 Poor condition of the milking machine in the dairy unit due to the breakage and
outdated of the milking machine.

 Poor selection of the rootstock during the selection for grafting purpose in Mango
nursery area.

 Insufficient water supply and electricity shutdown during operation at the farm.

 Outbreak of diseases and crop pests in Animal unit and crop production. This is due
 to the presence of Maasai Pastoralist grazing their local breeds of animals around the
University farm frequently causes high presence of tick infestation and destruction of
the natural pasture growth around the farm during trekking of animals.
RECOMMENDATION

The farm management committee of the University farm should observe the following
recommendations in order to increase the production of the farm through farm committee
should introduce the concentrate feeds to the dairy animals in order to increase production of
milk. The farm should make sure the health of the animal is well maintained to ensure the
welfare of the animal in order to increase quality products and by-products to the intended
customers. Also for the farm to have more access to water there should be introduce of the
water well for harvesting of the rain water during rainy season for the future uses.
My advice to the Mazimbu farm executive and the farm board committee are as follows;
To ensure that in order to overcome the problems of inadequate financial support for the
improvements of the available activities and the expansion into other activities the available
resources must be well utilized and consultants should contact with the extension officers to
encounter the business proposal and collaborates with donors such as the World Bank to be
provided with Funds.
The University farm management should implement and rehabilitate the machinery to have a
well structure machines to perform the job easily and hence to increase of the productivity for
both the animal units and crop production.
The University Farm Management should precisely involves other stack holders and
agribusiness firms to provide their point of views about the performance of Farm and have a
great room in order to reform the available projects in the farm to improve the innovation
through introducing new technology in order to produce more animals per season , pasture
production and feeding regime to increase more production.

CONCLUSION:
For the improvement of the farm there should be improvement of infrastructures and dairy
value chain. Workers should ensure participation in the value chain actor’s also clear
regulations of the extension services as well as availability of market for inputs and services
and improved value chain coordination.