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THE Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) has sought the services of a South African-based internationally renowned livestock consultant firm, TAD Scientific to prepare a Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD) strategic plan which will be used to access funding from donors in a bid to combat the disease in the country.
FAO started supporting Zimbabwe to control FMD in 2004 through funding from the European Union channelling more than $10 million towards vaccination programmes.
FAO’s livestock officer (FMD focal point), Dr Elma Sikala said owing to the large sums, which the donor has been channelling towards fighting the disease over the years, they have started to be sceptical about the effective utilisation of resources taking into consideration that the country still had no strategic document or position paper on curbing FMD.
“It seems things haven’t got better and as we speak (this year) we have had outbreaks in six of the eight (farming) provinces. It actually broke out in previously coined free areas like Mashonaland West, the Mhondoro-Ngezi area and the only free provinces are Mashonaland Central and Mashonaland East,” Dr Sakala said.
The veterinarian said owing to persistent and new FMD outbreaks this year, the Government approached FAO to assist it with vaccines but there was bit of resistance by the donor to issue out the aid though eventually it mellowed leading to the allocation of 593 000 doses of FMD vaccines.
“The donors were not so forthcoming because they said this FMD vaccination funding programme has gone on for so many years . . . so the donors are now asking what are your plans as a country — the vision with regards to FMD control.
“One of the things the donors wanted to see was the blueprint. The strategy with FMD control and we don’t have one, so even if someone comes with money and they want to see control options there is nothing,” Dr Sikala said.
The unavailability of a properly structured FMD strategic document resulted in FAO seeking the services of TAD Scientific to assist in implementing one.
TAD Scientific is a consulting company specialising in rural development, animal health and trade in livestock commodities whose director Dr Gavin Thomson is resident in South Africa but grew up in Zimbabwe.
“We said we have to come up with a strategy, an implementation framework of that strategy, which will cover at least a year or two intense interventions so that at least we control the impact it has on the livelihoods of farmers.
“So this is now the process, it’s also through EU funding. So what we have done is that we have found a regional consultant who is a guru, I mean he has done work all across Africa,” Dr Sakala said.
Dr Thomson is also tasked with coming up with Commodity Based Trade guidelines for Southern African Development Community, which allows the countries to trade on livestock products as commodities.
Before the advent of FMD outbreak Zimbabwe in 2001 the country used to export its beef to Europe.
“We can still trade in beef but not as carcasses but deboned beef among other things. So Dr Thomson is coming up with those guidelines as recommended by the OIE-World Organisation for Animal Health.
“OIE had a meeting in May and agreed that southern Africa has to come up with the guidelines, which I think they will then endorse. So I think that’s part of his contract as well . . . so I think we couldn’t have gotten a better consultant,” Dr Sikala said.
Dr Thomson said he looks forward to working with all relevant stakeholders in the country to formulate an FMD policy.
“The strategies are there but as of now have not delivered the results that we expected. So what we are trying to do now is to see how we are going to modify those strategies to make them more acceptable,” he said.
Dr Thomson said FMD had drastic economic impact on farmers and as such there was need to expedite ways of curbing the disease to ensure viability in the livestock sector.
“Most of the affected farmers are in some arid areas of Zimbabwe. They are suffering and there is no doubt, but one of the many things that we are trying to do is to facilitate easy access to the market so that it can impact on the economic viability of the many livestock farmers we have,” he said.
Dr Thomson expressed optimism that the country can resume exports to the EU in the near future or explore other markets.
“I think there are developments in countries specifically in Southern African countries, regionally in the Sadc context and also international, which are changing perspectives and I am confident that in the very near future things will change in a positive sense, especially for places like Zimbabwe,” he said.
Bongani Ndlovu