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National cattle herd records 1% growth

Agriculture
The country’s 2020-2025 livestock growth plan identifies livestock diseases as one of the key intervention points requiring urgent attention to correctly position the livestock sector for meaningful contribution to the national development strategy.

BY LORRAINE MUROMO THE national herd began to gradually increase after the country recorded a commendable 47% drop in livestock deaths due to intensive dipping programmes, the Department of Veterinary Services (DVS) has revealed.

According to the Zimbabwe Resilience Building Fund (ZRBF), 65% of the population derives its livelihood from crop farming and 40% from livestock production.

The country’s 2020-2025 livestock growth plan identifies livestock diseases as one of the key intervention points requiring urgent attention to correctly position the livestock sector for meaningful contribution to the national development strategy.

Speaking on the sidelines of a veterinary legislature review workshop in Nyanga recently, DVS chief director Josephat Nyika told Newsday Business that despite challenges of cattle dying from theileriosis and January disease, government had embarked on several programmes for immediate mitigation.

“As the government, we have a very strict dipping regime, the 554 intensive day dipping interval and application of tick grease in the ear so that the ticks that are responsible for transmitting the disease die when they try to feed,” he said.

“Last year alone, we had a 47% reduction after this intensive dipping and application of the tick grease. This year we have not taken stock of the figures but we reduced further deaths from this January disease scourge.”

Nyika said the country had actually experienced a 1% growth in the national cattle herd.

“We have experienced a 1% growth from 5,4 million to 5,5 million, so we are seeing a recovery of the national cattle herd and improved cattle management in terms of disease control as well as ticks and pests. We are reviewing the subsidiary and secondary legislation that supports the Animal Health Act and it is the implementation that is key in the achievement of what we are trying to achieve,” Nyika noted.

ZRBF programmes specialist under the United Nations Development Programme, Solomon Mutambara said: “As the Zimbabwe Resilience Building Fund, we have worked with the Department of Veterinary Services to come up with a sustainable cattle dipping model as a way to ensure that we effectively build the capacities of cattle owners to contribute to their own access of acarisite.

“We are aimed at building the absorptive and adaptive transformative capacities. So with these efforts, we are helping communities to ensure they adapt to the changes that are happening in their space, especially in the increase of frequency in tick-borne diseases and other climate-related diseases.”

However, Livestock and Meat Advisory Council administrator Chrispen Sukume bemoaned the lack of adequate dipping chemicals in the country and urged the government to intervene.

“There is a lack of dipping chemicals especially in the small-scale producer areas which has multiple impacts across the board. The livestock industry depends on materials that are grown by farmers and use cattle as draft power. What we feel needs to be done, especially in the small-scale farming area, is that government needs to come through in the supply of dipping chemicals,” he said.

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