January disease, a deliberate Govt intervention is needed

Farming issues, Mhlupheki Dube

THE country has largely celebrated the abundant rains that we have received and continue to receive this year. We have also highlighted the challenges that it brings to the farmer. In fact, it gets very ironic that during an excellent rainfall season like this one we are having this year, some farmers are experiencing their worst production season.

I get a lot of farmers sending messages of distress calls to various platforms of interaction that are available these days. One prominent distress message is about livestock losses due to Theileriosis, commonly known as January disease.

Farmers in areas where the disease is endemic are losing animals in droves to this deadly disease. This is by no means a new disease in the country. It is a well-documented tick-borne disease which is controlled pretty much in the same way as any other tick-borne disease.
The disease incidences had gone down over the years due to strict cattle dipping regimes that the country followed. When the dipping regimes became erratic due to economic challenges facing the country and by extension the department of veterinary services, the disease resurfaced and it has been wreaking havoc in some districts in Mashonaland provinces in the past four or so years.

Some herds have been completely wiped off in areas such as Chivhu, Hwedza, Gutu, parts of Buhera and some other districts. January disease is giving farmers sleepless nights as the disease is easier to prevent than treat. The treatment is not only expensive but the efficacy of the treatment drugs is always being questioned by many farmers who still suffer the loss of their animals even after buying and administering the treatment drugs.

A number of farmers are trying a lot of experimental treatment procedures using a combination of drugs and some are providing testimonies of successful treatments at their farms.

The bottom line however, is that a lot of livestock farmers especially in the affected districts are in torrid times because of the disease. The abundance of rains naturally results in increased tick infestation and the increased prevalence of the disease. It is my submission that Government needs to take deliberate actions aimed at controlling this disease which is threatening our national herd. Even actions such as deliberately providing more accaricides in the affected areas so that dipping cycles are even made shorter and very regular. This will obviously intercept the life cycle of the pathogen and prevent disease occurrence.

Without such customised responses to this disease of economic importance farmers will lose their life savings as livestock herds get wiped out. It is already a sad picture as you drive through some of these districts because you can drive for several kilometres and all you see is large expanses of grazing lands with no grazing animals, homesteads with deserted cattle kraals. This situation cannot be left unattended because sooner or later we will hear of the disease having migrated to other provinces and districts. Let’s nip it in the bud. While it has been traditionally the role of Government through the department of veterinary services to conduct dipping sessions, farmers should be warned against the folly of abrogating their responsibility to Government.

After all these are your animals not Government animals, take care of them! These cannot only be your animals when you sell and enjoy the money but somehow you pretend as if these are Government animals when rearing them. It is actually telling that commercial livestock farmers in the same affected districts do not seem to be facing the same challenge.

Is it not natural that if the disease is in a certain locality, even commercial farmers in that area should be affected? The difference in predicament can be explained only from the differences in management of animal health.
“Commercial livestock farmers are known to adopt very strict animal health management practices including strict dipping regimes and hence they seem spared by the ravaging disease.

This idea of first looking at your animals whether they have ticks on them, then you decide to dip them, is wrong. Have a regular uninterrupted dipping regime so that you intercept the lifecycle of the pathogen and protect your animals from the disease.

Uyabonga umntakaMaKhumalo. Feedback [email protected] cell 0772851275