Mark Hook Revived Zimbabwe's Boran and Nkone Cattle Societies

Who is Mark Hook?

Mark Hook farms Doonside in Mutorashanga, Mashonaland West, and chairs the bodies that keep two African breeds alive in Zimbabwe. He is chairperson of the Cattle Producers Association, the Nkone Cattle Breeders Society and the Boran Breeders Society, and sits on the executive committee of the Zimbabwe Herd Book. As a living person, this profile covers only his public professional record.

The main source is a February 2026 Farmer's Weekly feature, Mark Hook leads revival of Boran and Nkone cattle societies in Zimbabwe. The article is detailed enough to support a full-depth profile.

From tobacco to cattle at Doonside

Hook was born in Harare and graduated from Chibero Agricultural College in 1982. In 1990 he bought the 120 ha Doonside Farm, which was mainly a tobacco operation, with paprika and maize also grown. He bought his first cattle, Beefmasters, in 1993 and imported Beefmaster semen from the United States in 1995.

In 2005 he introduced Boran, starting with 11 animals from Forrester Estates. He then added 33 more after noticing that the Boran kept eating in the midday heat when his Beefmasters rested. Today he runs about 650 Boran, 250 Beefmasters and 100 Nkone.

How Boran reached Zimbabwe, and why the society lapsed

Boran arrived in Zimbabwe in 1993 at Forrester Estates in Mvurwi, where about 600 embryos imported from Kenya produced just under 300 calves. That importation led to the formation of the Boran Breeders Society. The society went dormant around 2004, after some breeders left the country.

The Kenyan side of the breed's history is covered by the Boran Cattle Breeders' Society of Kenya, which records that 100 donor cows and 12 bulls were selected for Forrester Estates in 1992.

Reviving the Boran society

In 2011 Hook and three others, Dave Jobson, Solomon Zawe and Les Mallett, revived the society and renamed it the Zimbabwe Boran Breeders Society. Hook became chairperson in 2014. It began with two breeders. It now has 89 breeders and over 8,600 animals registered with the Zimbabwe Herd Book, making Boran the second-largest breed in the country after the Brahman.

That growth is the clearest measure of what a working breed society can do: it gives buyers a registry to trust and gives small breeders a place to sell.

Rescuing the Nkone

The last Nkone herd was deregistered in 2017. Its owner had bred Nkone for about 60 years and kept good records. In 2019 Hook and George Hulme assembled about 50 Nkone cows, and the Nkone Society was restarted. It now has 600 registered animals across seven breeders.

That is a small base, and the article treats it as work in progress rather than a finished conservation story.

Breeding management and Boran traits

Hook targets an 80% weaning rate, corresponding to about 85% pregnancy diagnosis. He runs two bulling seasons: a 63-day summer period from around 20 January, and a 42-day winter period from early June. Cows that fail to conceive in summer get a winter chance, and those that still fail are culled.

He describes Boran as fertile, selected for milk and disease resistant, with a thick skin and oily coat that helps repel insects. He says they recover well after drought and can go two or three days without water. Those are his reported observations, and the breed's wider background is in Farmer's Weekly's profile of the East African Boran.

Learn more

Explore African cattle breeds in farm.FM's ranching section or read a farm.FM story about Boran cattle.