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Protecting livestock against disease is one of the main and obvious functions of the Department of Veterinary Services and most farmers are grateful for the support they get and see the point of the rules and recommendations.
Having your cattle, or for that matter your chickens, dying wipes out major assets and destroys any chance of profit and a decent standard of living. Zimbabwean consumers are also somewhat dubious about eating anything that has died of disease, so slaughtering sick animals does not even mean some of the loss can be clawed back.
The Vet Department has legislative backing for many of its interventions, as although there might be a substantial majority of farmers who go along voluntarily with the rules, there is a minority who do not, plus some dealers who do not care, plus some criminals such as cattle thieves who relish breaking rules.
One major disease prevalent in Zimbabwe is theileriosis, also known as January Disease, where farmers are usually very co-operative since this infection is the biggest killer of cattle in the country.
The Vet Department now has an effective vaccine, and has made vaccination compulsory, and the department is also pressing hard for the other control measures of dipping and tick-grease to kill the brown ticks that carry this and other diseases. The measures are working.
Foot and mouth is another major disease. This does not have a vector like a tick and spreads by close contact between bovines, or their products.
In one sense it is not that disastrous in Zimbabwe, or in any warm country, especially where what passes for a winter is not that cold and is dry. One cow and 10 calves have died of foot and mouth in Zimbabwe this year, and trucks kill far more.
But its presence can hammer exports and especially exports to lucrative markets with premium prices such as the European Union, for the good reason that an outbreak in that sort of climate can kill a lot of cattle, so these countries do not want to even hear that contaminated exports might exist. They will ban exports from countries where there is risk.
Zimbabwean livestock farmers have now rebuilt their herds to the sort of level where they can meet local demand for beef, and the major successes now being scored against theileriosis mean that more cattle will be available for market.
This means we can now start to plan for future exports, which means we need to enforce, rigorously the veterinary controls that our potential customers expect as a matter of course.
The approach for foot and mouth has been worked out, and has worked before. The disease cannot be eradicated in Southern Africa.
The wild buffalo population is a reservoir of infection. So one control measure is keeping buffalo and cattle apart.
This is one major reason why the game fences surrounding the major wildlife areas are now being repaired and upgraded, which has the useful extra benefit of keeping more dangerous animals away from farms and humans.
At one stage we had zones. There was a zone next to major wildlife parks and along borders where infection was possible, and then there was a buffer zone, before we reached the main zone where exports were possible.
Serious monitoring, controls and the like meant that major export markets were satisfied that uninfected beef was routinely possible.
More to the point, Zimbabwe has adopted the policy of vaccination for foot and mouth. And again in those districts where the order is given, then vaccination becomes compulsory.
Since the vaccines are generally free this should not be an imposition, just something that farmers do.
Another major control is the need for veterinary authorisation before moving cattle and other livestock. This makes sense, since it allows controls, it can insure that only vaccinated cattle are moved, and it makes zoning possible.
The permissions are not that difficult to obtain and the procedure is followed in other countries.
Anyone travelling across Botswana, where a lot of people earn a living raising and selling cattle, with the country enjoying very large export markets, the controls against spreading disease are rigorously enforced from the moment you enter the country.
When travelling across the country the motorist comes across the control points, and they are about as common as toll gates in Zimbabwe, with many of them being permanent structures and the road blocked until someone has checked out the vehicle.
You are simply not allowed to move meat products across Botswana, let alone livestock, without the sort of controls and permissions that only licensed commercial dealers can even hope to meet. The result is Botswana does not have disease spreading.
Our Vet Department is now becoming more ubiquitous with road blocks and control points, and could even start stationing people at toll gates if that would help. This sort of enforcement of the requirement of movement orders should also help tackle stocktheft since the thieves do not seek movement orders to advertise their crimes.
The legal backing for what is required is there. It just needs enforcement and a Vet Department with adequate resources to enforce. Both are now coming to the fore after some years of neglect, so as our cattle herd reaches the levels where exports are needed and possible, we must have everything it place.
The return of livestock and beef exports means that, with the present land distribution, that a sizeable block of farmers will win, not just the few hundred who won last time we had significant exports, and so a good number of households will be closer to that upper-middle income status we have as our vision.
That Vision 2030 is impossible, and does not make sense, unless it means that most households and families in Zimbabwe are upper middle income, and since just over 60 percent of the population is rural, that means most farming families need to be in the group.
Those of us who do not farm also win, for a start if we buy and eat meat we will be assured that the meat we buy is disease free, comes from a legal source, and has been tested for quality. And that is comforting and important.
Online Reporter