Chronicle Editor
Farming Issues with Mhlupheki Dube
READING an article about The World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH), previously known as the OIE, which held its 91st general session of the world assembly of delegates in May in Paris, France, left me a bit disappointed.
The delegates discussed troublesome livestock diseases including the emerging one health concept. My frustration stems from the fact that the conversation still follows the same route and prioritisation of diseases which somehow discount some of the most problematic diseases for livestock farmers.
I would have expected the deadly theileriosis (January disease) to occupy a prominent role even ahead of foot and mouth disease.
It is not a secret that theileriosis has way higher mortality rates than foot and mouth disease, yet it is not given prominence but just thrown under the umbrella of vector-borne diseases.
Perhaps instead of generalising the importance of these diseases across the globe, the organisation also needs to zero in on specific regions and give a profile of importance for livestock diseases so that animal health interventions are informed by such characterisation.
The January disease is undoubtedly the most ravaging for livestock farmers in Zimbabwe at the moment and perhaps for the past five or so years. Farmers have lost big time, with some herds completely wiped off and the disease spreading its geographical coverage. In that regard, it does not make sense for me and I guess many other livestock farmers to give foot and mouth disease prominence over theileriosis.
I am fully aware of the trade implications of foot and mouth disease but it has also not lost my attention that with or without foot and mouth disease, if theileriosis is not curbed, there will be no animal left to trade in the not so distant future.
We probably need new standards of measuring and classifying livestock disease importance and not just the trade aspect.
There is no point in focusing only on how disease-clean and safe the meat products being traded are, leaving out attention on the survival and posterity of the same industry.
With the way January disease is decimating farmers’ herds, it will not belong before we run out of any livestock to trade.
Talking about trade, this pen implores the upcoming 7th Sadc Industrialisation Week to be held from the 28th of July to the 2nd of August, to shine the light on the trade aspect of various agriculture-based value chains.
It must be appreciated that agriculture value chains support a very significant percentage of industries in the Sadc countries and stimulating the growth of these value chains will have a positive effect on the industrialisation drive that the summit seeks to promote.
There is no better way to stimulate the performance of any value chain than by providing competitive and consistent trade platforms. Livestock farmers have been screaming under the pain of extremely suppressed producer prices since February up to now.
This has serious negative consequences for a number of sectors that rely on this value chain.
This pen therefore implores delegates to this very important regional meeting to strongly look around the market linkages and trade side of industrialisation, especially for the agricultural sector.
This pen will not refuse an invitation to share a few slides on this aspect with the esteemed delegates from the Sadc region! We need serious conversations around agricultural marketing within the region before we even think of areas beyond.
Zimbabwean livestock farmers are struggling with depressed producer prices, yet there could be a country within the region in need of our beef and willing to pay decent figures.
This is the information such important meetings need to generate and share for the development of the value chains and by extension related industries.
Uyabonga umntaka MaKhumalo.
ν Mhlupheki Dube is a livestock specialist and farmer. He writes in his own capacity. Feedback [email protected] cell 0772851275.
Bongani Ndlovu
Online Reporter