07 Jun 2015

Heeding to the grievance of not being able to sell cattle due to Foot and Mouth Disease[FMD] by farmers in the Ngamiland District, the Ministry of Agriculture is hard at work to arrest the situation.

The permanent secretary in the ministry, Dr Marcus Chimbombi told members of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) last Thursday that they were currently working on soliciting market in countries such as Angola, Mozambique and Albania for the concerned farmers. He said samples had already been sent to these countries and Angola was willing to import beef from the district.

Dr Chimbombi acknowledged the challenge brought about by FMD in the district which resulted in farmers selling their cattle in small numbers to the Botswana Meat Commission and noted that in the past two years the ministry has embarked on establishing a protection zone to try to eradicate the disease. He also assured the PAC members that there would be no killing of cattle in zone 6 and zone 7 in the event of FMD outbreak.

A member of the PAC, Mr Kostantinos Markus had asked how long farmers in Ngamiland would go without selling their cattle and why the ministry didn’t consider using quarantine camps in Ngamiland to vaccine and sell them. He also suggested that the government should erect a new fence instead of maintaining the one that has been there for over 25 years ENDS