‘Govt has failed to address livestock diseases’

‘Govt has failed to address livestock diseases’
Written by George Zulu in Monze
Saturday, April 25, 2009 2:40:20 PM

LIVESTOCK and fisheries minister Bradford Machila on Thursday said the government has failed to address livestock diseases in Southern Province. In an interview after addressing both livestock and crop farmers at Chiluli farms in Monze, Machila said the government, through his ministry, realised its failures in addressing the challenges the livestock sector was facing.

“The issue of livestock is the one that we take very seriously in the ministry during this tour, a lot of complaints have been mentioned even in other districts we have gone to. We realise that there has been a lot of frustrations among livestock producers in the manner the ministry has been dealing and responding to problems of disease control. In addition to the problems of disease control, we also acknowledge the problem that is caused by the frequent banning of the movement of livestock,” he said.

Machila said the developments in the livestock sector could only be enhanced once animal diseases were controlled.

He said there were many other factors that had contributed to the prevailing situation of livestock diseases, adding that lack of regular dipping of animals, failure to have consistent programmes for vaccination and branding of animals for easy identification had affected the sector.

“We also recognise our failings and short comings as government in that we have failed to provide the services that are needed at the ground and it is against this background that this year there has been a substantial increase to the livestock sector in the national budget, in addition to the resources government has allocated to my ministry in the national budget, a number of donors and other co-operating partners have indicated willingness to help in our agenda of disease control,” Machila said.

And Bweengwa member of parliament, Highvie Hamududu, said Machila’s visit to the area should address the loss of huge numbers of animals dying from corridor and tick borne diseases.

Hamududu said the government should also revisit the cattle restocking programme especially in areas prone to animal diseases.

“This is a good precedence by the minister and I hope it will bring hope to our livestock farmers in the district and the province, however I urge the ministry to firstly deal with disease control before another restocking exercise is carried out. We need to address the issue of animal diseases, we cannot continue giving animals which die at the end of the day, so it is the responsibility of the ministry to deal first with the diseases,” said Hamududu.