The Sunday News
Mhlupheki Dube
THE granting of a Foot and Mouth clean status to some districts in Matabeleland South need to be applauded.
This is a major milestone and certainly good news to a lot of livestock farmers in those districts. To those who may not know Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD) is also called a disease of economic importance within the livestock sector because it has a huge economic bearing on the farmer.
If there is a reported outbreak in an area, that area is quarantined and movement of animals banned or restricted.
This quarantine can be as long as two years in some areas.
This effectively means that farmers within the affected areas are unable to sell their animals or their level of trade is severely restricted to near prohibition levels.
Now this is huge punishment to livestock farmers as this is their major source of income and livelihood.
The farmer is suddenly incapacitated to levels of even failing to pay for children’s fees during the subsistence of the trade ban.
FMD has been a major thorn in the flesh for both livestock farmers and responsible authorities as there have been accusations and counter accusations with some degenerating into clumsy acrimony.
I remember attending a stakeholders meeting on FMD and these invariably had emotions and sparks flying all over.
FMD in the cleared districts was reported as way back as 2015 which means authorities and farmers have been battling with this disease for close to three years.
It is therefore worth congratulating and celebrating the achievement of eliminating the menace of this disease in those cleared districts.
It is also hoped that similar workmanship will be adopted in other districts across all the provinces of the country that are burdened by the existence of this disease in their midst.
It will be nice and extremely good news for the farmers if at least 90 percent of the areas traditionally affected by FMD can be managed until they attain clean area status.
This will mean livestock trading will be more open and animals can move across districts.
However, in the same spirit of applauding this achievement it is also in good keeping providing good counsel especially to livestock farmers in terms of preventing future outbreaks.
I therefore, implore farmers and other livestock traders within the value chain to trade responsibly so as to avoid future outbreaks of this disease of economic importance.
Farmers should respect the veterinary restrictions with regards to livestock movement as this will help prevent spreading the disease.
Farmers should always be vigilant and report any suspicious and illegal movement of cattle.
Let’s not aide in polluting the now clean areas. If animals have been issued a direct slaughter permit which means they are supposed to be transported to the slaughter place, that should happen not this common practice of farmers buying animals from dirty areas, transporting them under the direct slaughter permit but divert them to their farms for rearing.
This is one major cause of the spread of FMD. It should be noted that if your district is now declared clean this automatically increases the value of the animals in those districts.
Dirty areas traditionally have poor prices due to trade and movement restrictions hence the common practice of buying cheaper animals in dirty areas and smuggling them to clean areas for breeding.
Farmers should be vigilant and work with the veterinary officers all the time so that the disease can be prevented.
Also the veterinary department should work closely with farmers so that they can get intelligence information on any possible transgressions.
The veterinary department should not just wait to quarantine and impose trade ban as this usually cause friction with farmers.
One also hopes that as more areas get clean status it will become much easier to reopen the livestock auction at the Zimbabwe International Trade Fair grounds. Farmers have been clamouring for this for a long time. Uyabonga umntakaMaKhumalo.
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