Brava: Sustainable grazing project trains 22 breeders in “animal health and diet”

The Biflores association provided training for a week in “animal health and diet” to 28 people, 22 of which were livestock breeders from the island and the remaining technicians from the association and the MAA.

Speaking to Inforpress, Vani Furtado, a Biflores technician, explained that the training given by a trainer from "Be Safe" was aimed at continuing the sustainable grazing plan, as a way of complementing the activities that have been carried out since the beginning of the project.

This training was also, according to the environmentalist, a way of sensitizing the island's cattle breeders to adhere to the process of confinement of animals in stables, showing them the risks that the environment runs with free grazing, but also showing them that when animals are confined, they can be fed safely, allowing breeders to ensure their food needs and have the expected productivity.

"Often, they say that when they put the animals in the corral, they don't always have a satisfactory production", he indicated, thus justifying the need to show them, with technicians in the area, how it is possible to maintain production, even with the animals in confinement.

As for the training modality, he explained that it was in two modules, one being theoretical, where the trainees were aware of the physiological analysis of the animal and the practical part was the demonstration of the mixture of forage portions, especially the hay made.

In terms of fodder, he showed that the island has many forages that allow haymaking and these are a protein bank.

In practice, he indicated that they took from the barbandeiro, castor bean, mulberry, moringa, hayed and dried for three days, then mixed with other pastures with fiber, showing the breeders how they can satisfy the animals' food needs.

Faced with the enthusiasm of the breeders and their commitment, Vani Furtado believes that they managed to achieve the objective, with some of the breeders showing an interest in changing the style of raising animals, focusing on healthy eating.

Incidentally, he maintained that some breeders are already preparing land for the creation of forage fields and protein banks.

He also added that Biflores technicians are already on the ground so that this plan is implemented in a positive way and giving all the support to the creators.

“United, we will achieve the objectives outlined in the training and the sustainable grazing project”, he said, reinforcing that the Biflores team will visit some locations, namely João da Noli, Cachaço and Mato, to visit the areas made available for the production of fields fodder and thus work on preparing them so that right after the rains they can plant and still this year be able to harvest and carry on with the other processes.

The training was carried out in partnership with the delegation of the Ministry of Agriculture and Environment (MAA) and the Municipality of Brava.