Livestock marketing compliance procedures need to be reviewed

01 Jan, 2017 - 00:01 0 Views

The Sunday News

My experience in trying to help smallholder farmers in Hwange District to clear their animals for the market convinced me again that the whole compliance process for livestock marketing needs to be revised. The cattle clearing process is more painful than tooth extraction and it is simply prohibitive for sellers.

While the intention is noble, that is to curb stock theft, this pen is convinced that either the system was designed by an officer with very little experience on the ground or it was crafted by an extremely angry officer who probably had just lost his herd to stock thieves. It is common and less expensive knowledge that most communal farmers are people of limited means and it is simply difficult if not outright impossible for most of them to conveniently and easily fulfil some of the compliance requirements such as collecting the police and veterinary officer to go and clear the animal(s) in situ.

I had to wait for two hours to be given a police officer for the clearance process. Imagine waiting at the charge office benches for two hours and this can almost be generalised for most police stations across different provinces.

Somehow when it comes to cattle clearance duties the police are suddenly conveniently short staffed but can easily assemble a 10-member roadblock for every small road within the district! Guess what, they never run out of transport to take them to these numerous roadblocks but they are never even once able to find their way to your kraal to clear your herd. You have to shuttle them to and from at your own cost.

The process is simply not farmer friendly and that needs to be changed. Selling your animal should not be a punishment. It is actually a pleasant occasion that every family looks forward to especially during this time of the year because it means the family cash flows and invariably diets improve significantly.

This pen proposes that cattle clearing and issuing of movement permits should be housed in one department. The department of veterinary services is definitely adequately equipped to be able to clear animals and issue permits. If a one-stop-shop kind of approach can be adopted and additional mechanisms put in place to make the process farmer friendly it can stimulate offtake among smallholder farmers. Also clearing officers need to be adequately trained on how to complete the forms so that there is no unnecessary inconvenience and cost that is incurred by a farmer because of poorly completed forms.

What is obtaining at the moment is that some of the police officers clearing farmer’s animals seem to have a serious challenge completing the forms and this usually affects the farmer at the point of receiving animals. An example is where an officer fails to properly record the destination of the animals that are being moved.

The destination is simply an abattoir for all animals sold for slaughter and this has to be recorded on the clearance forms and the movement permit. If the name of the abattoir is not explicitly written the animals cannot be slaughtered.

Now the police officer who made the error of omission will no longer be available to correct that and the farmer is then bounced from one police station to another trying get that error corrected. It is without exception a painful inconvenience and irritation not to mention the cost. Officers clearing should be able to complete clearance forms and write permits, if the service is now housed under one roof, without unnecessary mistakes.

In some of these police stations you get the feeling that the greenest rookie is the one given the task of clearing animals or whoever is closest to the drawer with clearance forms can just be assigned to do the clearing with obvious consequences.

This pen therefore calls for farmers unions and other relevant stakeholders to start lobbying the Government to put all the compliance processes under one department and make the process user friendly as much as possible and still retain the security levels required. Uyabonga umntakaMaKhumalo.

Feedback [email protected]; cell 0772851275

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