Re-enforcing rural folk support pillars

Stephen Mpofu

Some Zimbabwean children born and raised in urban areas set-up which invariably becomes their miniature global village, are wont to take to their heels at the sight of cattle when visiting rural areas for the first time.

For some, their first encounter with livestock was a photograph of the beasts on television, in their school text books or in newspapers.

But, of course, the children in point in this discourse do not flee from tongue tingling pieces of beef served as relish with isitshwala/sadza in the same way that milk, sour or fresh is a product of livestock which provides wealth to inhabitants of what colonialists and other people pejoratively described as the periphery or the sticks, in the same way that electrical power drives the wheels of industry that provide jobs, incomes and other salient products of wealth such as cars and houses in addition to generating much-needed foreign currency from exports to revive and propel economic growth moribund at the moment due to illegal Western sanctions and in the process re-position Zimbabwe on the way toward a brave new future even though the way might at present seem agonisingly long and meandering.

The silent but dominant message to be deduced from this account is that the Government recognises the pivotal role that livestock play in the lives of the majority of Zimbabweans who live in the countryside, providing draught power for tillage, income when sold for children’s school fees and medical expenses in addition to beef and hides for the production of shoes for instance hence the state has seen it necessary to allocate ZWL$67 million for the procurement of dip chemicals, vaccines and animal pest and disease surveillance to curb livestock deaths which are prevalent in the country with reports to the effect that 800 000 animals have succumbed to tick-borne diseases countrywide.

The Department of Veterinary Services director, Dr Josphat Nyika, said earlier this week that through a supplementary budget, the department would settle its payments to dip chemical suppliers and Botswana Vaccine Institute and receive an additional 500 000 doses of foot and mouth disease vaccines.

In the past, beef exports to Europe earned a lot of forex which enhanced Zimbabwe’s economic development but an outbreak of foot and mouth disease halted this country’s beef exports in 2001 — a sad development which must be reversed with greater support for livestock especially in the wake of devolution, a process that will see more central Government power being deployed to urban and more importantly rural areas that are at the tail end of development at the moment.

Moreover, not all areas of Zimbabwe are suitable for commercial farming with tractors and therefore people in areas prone to recurrent droughts, especially with global warming, have to depend on livestock for various aspects of their livelihoods with goats and sheep coming in to provide meat as well as small incomes.

The beef market out there in foreign lands is big and beckoning to countries that take care of their livestock.

Recently, the presidents of China and South Africa reportedly agreed a resumption of beef exports by Pretoria to the vast Chinese market after a long break caused by outbreak of foot and mouth disease in South Africa.

As our all-weather friends, the Chinese will no doubt want to enjoy our succulent beef as well as Europe which no doubt misses our tasty beef cuts, particularly when the illegal Western sanctions imposed on this country in protest against land reform are finally lifted.

It therefore behoves on our Government to make cattle rearing an integral part of Command Agriculture with dams being constructed in areas that are prone to droughts so that cattle may be reared there in addition to goats and sheep that are a delicacy on dinner tables in some countries in the Middle East.

Diversifying sources of earnings will certainly help revive this country’s economy now on a limp and with that enhance political stability and confidence in Government as full bellies and smiles on the generality of citizens will render political subterfuge and other intrigues irrelevant as people concentrate on their daily bread and butter concerns.