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Precious Manomano
Herald Reporter
Efforts to resuscitate the livestock sector continue to gather traction with the Government implementing several measures aimed at boosting production to satisfy national demand for both human consumption and industrial use.
The livestock sector contributes significantly to the inclusive growth and development of the national economy.
Under Livestock recovery and growth plan the Government was concerned with the level of performance of the livestock sector and it promulgated a blueprint to address all areas that were limiting growth.
Observed challenges were associated with animal health, sanitary and feed safety issues, availability of adequate nutrition (pastures, fodder and water) and genetics improvement issues.
These challenges are responsible for the low off-take, low fertility, high mortality and morbidity, low carcass weight, poor quality and inability to effectively compete on the export market.
The main objectives are to improve or address challenges in the key areas of animal health, animal genetics, animal nutrition and other related parameters.
Farmers have hailed Government efforts to protect the national herd from tick-borne diseases that have killed nearly 500 000 cattle in the rainy seasons in the past few years.
Vector-borne diseases, particularly tick-borne diseases, constitute the biggest risk to livestock production and account for over 60 percent of recorded ruminant livestock deaths.
In 2017 alone, the country lost over 55 000 cattle due to tick-borne-related deaths. This figure swelled to in excess of 500 000 cattle deaths by 2020. This prompted the Government to institute measures to avert the situation and this included increasing its budget towards the fight against the January disease.
Zimbabwe is moving ahead on several fronts to fight tick-borne diseases by building, rebuilding and renovating dip tanks as well as manufacturing vaccines. The Government is accelerating plans to build the national herd to six million in line with the country’s agricultural growth recovery plan to meet national demand for meat and dairy products, and then to resume export trade.
This requires not just breeding more cattle, but also ensuring that none are killed by disease.
Currently, the national herd stands at 5,5 million and various measures have been put in place to improve the quality of livestock including artificial insemination which involves cross breeding with semen from selected quality bulls and vaccination programmes.
A blitz tick-grease programme under the Presidential Inputs Scheme has also been a major boost in the fight against January disease and the programme will continue this season.
To make sure that the January disease does not spread, the Government was also pushing and rolling out the tick grease programme which proved to be a game changer following the 5-5-4 dipping regime and in between dipping, farmers are recommended to apply and smear tick grease to their animals.
Farmers are keen to see the dip tanks back and are participating in the rehabilitation of all non-functional dip tanks.
They are working very well to protect their cattle from tick-borne diseases. A farmer in Macheke, Mr Taurai Mangwiro has embarked on renovating dip tanks so that farmers can take their cattle for dipping.
He said farmers risk losing cattle to diseases that arise from not dipping their animals, hence the decision to construct dip tanks in the area.
“It is important for farmers to appreciate the Government’s effort of issuing subsidised dipping chemicals as they go a long way in the fight against ticks and tick-borne diseases.
“We want to thank our fellow farmers and the Government for the vision to construct dip tanks to reduce tick borne diseases.”
Mrs Maggy Munyoro of Zvimba said it is critical for farmers to continue working hand in hand with authorities to ensure that livestock is protected from tick-borne diseases.
“This is a critical issue which must not be ignored because we lost thousands of cattle due to tick-borne diseases. The majority of us were left with nothing, hence we appreciate the Government efforts to provide material which we are using to safeguard the livestock,” she said.
More than 4 000 dip tanks have been constructed since 2021, setting the country on course to have sufficient infrastructure required to curb theileriosis and other cattle diseases. The Government intends to construct 5 000 dip tanks by 2025.
Tobacco Farmers Union Trust vice president Mr Edward Dune said Government’s efforts to protect the national herd were greatly appreciated, adding that there was a great improvement shown so far in safeguarding cattle from tick-borne diseases.
“We can now feel a great improvement in our national herd. We lost thousands of cattle in the past few years due to tick-borne diseases, but today we are celebrating these efforts. These deaths are very low. In Manicaland we are still safe. Farmer awareness campaigns are helping a lot. We thank the Veterinary Department for providing enough information to the importance of dipping to our farmers. We also expect this to happen in other areas,” he said.
Mr Dune said a blitz tick-grease programme under the Presidential Inputs Scheme, which has been running for the past two seasons, had been a major boost in the fight against January disease.
Zimbabwe Indigenous Women Farmers Association Trust president Mrs Depinah Nkomo said Government’s efforts so far reflected its commitment towards improving the agricultural sector.
“We lost thousands of livestock in the sector for the past years, but now cattle mortality has significantly dropped. We are grateful, the Government is working hard to ensure that our livestock are well protected,” she said.
Government is also rehabilitating the dip tanks to ensure optimal functionality
Department of Veterinary Services chief director Dr Josphat Nyika said the Government was on a drive to revive all the non-functioning dip tanks and everyone now agreed that the best way to fight the spread of the January disease was to dip cattle regularly.
He said it is Government’s policy to resuscitate all non-functioning dip tanks to fight the spread of tick-borne diseases and already the results are being seen with notable reduction in cattle dying from tick-borne diseases.
“We are on a spree to resuscitate dip tanks. We need to put those that are not functional to function so we are in a blitz to resuscitate all the dip tanks in the country so that they are fully functional. Government has mobilised resources for the programme. “The reason for this programme is to ensure that we protect cattle from tick-borne diseases. Dipping chemicals are in stock to ensure that livestock is protected from tick-borne diseases and farmers should take livestock rearing as a serious business,” he said.
Recently, Ministry of Lands, Agriculture, Fisheries, Water and Rural Development Permanent Secretary Dr John Basera said the various programmes initiated in the livestock subsector were set to reduce cattle mortality.
“Doing away with diseases that affect cattle growth is a key aspect of our growing the cattle herd count in line with the Livestock, Recovery and Growth Plan,” he said.
The country’s cattle industry has seen a two percent decline in cattle mortality rates from 11 percent recorded in 2020 to nine in 2021 to six percent in 2022 as dipping was reported to be adequate in 67 percent of the 1 562 rural wards.
The positive growth is attributed to a fairly good season for livestock and a reduction in mortality, especially due to the decline in tick-borne diseases.
In response to various Government programmes the country’s cattle herd is up by two percent from 5 509 983 in 2021 to 5 642 400 in 2022 as the country targets a six million cattle herd by end of this year.
A war has been declared against tick-borne diseases after the country lost 500 000 cattle to the diseases recently.
Government implemented programmes such as the dip tank resuscitation programme, the Presidential blitz tick grease programme and the local manufacturing of vaccines.
The programme enhanced the national effort against ticks and tick-borne diseases, which culminated in a 47 percent reduction of cattle mortality due to the January disease in 2021, and a 39 percent decline in cattle mortalities in 2022, compared to the previous year in both instances.
Government reviewed the Animal Health Act and its associated regulations to more effectively enforce animal movement controls for an enhanced disease control programme.
Implementation of the revised Animal Health Act and its regulations will effectively serve the country’s livestock production and growth objectives..
Government is also enforcing the Cattle Cleansing Regulations of 1993, which make dipping of cattle mandatory, failure of which one faces prosecution.
The Presidential Goat Scheme (PGS) will see 632 000 good goat-genetic material consisting of 35 000 bucks and 597 000 does being distributed to vulnerable groups across the country’s 35 000 villages.
The Government will also increase and promote sheep production to 750 000 as well as increase pasture production. About 19 000 commercial sow herds are targeted with the Government pushing to improve access to financial services and increase artificial insemination programmes.
The Presidential Rural Poultry Scheme (PRPS) is set to benefit three million rural households in eight rural and two metropolitan provinces. Each household will get 10 rural poultry birds and 200g vitamin stress pack .
In 2020, the Government approved the Livestock Recovery and Growth Plan (2021-2026), whose main thrust is to put in place solid interventions to address livestock production and productivity issues required for a good foundation for the livestock sector to assume its prominent role in transforming farmers’ livelihoods and providing the required raw materials for agriculture-led industrial development, among other things.
The livestock sector contributes significantly to the inclusive growth and development of the national economy and is positioned to take a key role in the current national inclusive transformation agenda towards the attainment of Vision 2030.
The Government through rigorous programmes is now on track to achieve a 6 million cattle head count as the country moves towards import substitution whilst resuscitating the beef export market.
In addition, as part of efforts to climate proof the livestock subsector the Government through the Presidential fodder bank programme has capacitated 300 000 rural smallholder cattle farmers this season with inputs to produce fodder across the country. The department distributed a standard input package comprising of climate smart pasture options and climate smart feed options in a bid to promote on farm feed formulations to climate proof the livestock production subsector.
The programme is contributing towards herd building by building by eliminating cattle deaths during the dry season, improving carcass quality, carcass weight and improving conception rates in cows through maintenance of good body condition.
Climate change has brought its own challenges to the livestock sector. There has been an increase in animal disease outbreaks, frequent droughts and floods. These natural phenomena have continued to decimate the national herd. In the past 10 years, successive droughts have resulted in poor nutrition, especially for grazing animals, and this has led to reduced fertility, resulting in low calving rates. The national calving rate is below 50 percent, whereas the ideal should be above 60 percent.
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