08 Jul 2013

Farmers in Ngamiland have been urged to join hands with government to control and contain Foot and Mouth Disease outbreak by embarking on 100 per cent vaccination.

Addressing a kgotla meeting in Kareng, Minister of Agriculture, Mr Christiaan De Graaf said the FMD battle needed a collective responsibility and appealed to farmers to take all the cattle for vaccination.

He said government was aware that Ngamiland continued to experience re-occurrence of foot and mouth, adding that the disease appeared to respond well to standard control measures such as movement restriction and repeated vaccinations though there were some gaps in vaccination coverage particularly in the Okavango Delta, Lake Ngami and Kareng.

The minister stated that uncontrolled movement due to free availability of water and poor accessibility to certain areas due to the flooding of the Okavango River, worsened the situation. Mr De Graaf also noted that economic hardships made it hard for farmers to look after animals and participate in the disease prevention and containment measures.

“There are reports of some farmers unable to attend to boreholes breakdowns resulting in migration of herds to other cattle posts or areas where water is freely available like in Ngami area, the delta and other areas,” he added.

He said active cases were being recorded in Zone 2c particularly in Habu crushes. He said whilst the disease seemed to be dying out with recorded cases fewer and further apart, poor vaccination coverage meant that the situation remained unstable with high possibility of resurgence.

As an initiative to improve vaccination coverage, the Ministry of Agriculture would construct temporary crushes in areas where vaccination coverage was problematic including Lake Ngami and the delta.

In addition, veterinary inoculators would be deployed permanently to problem crushes after the main vaccination campaign had passed to give farmers enough time to bring animals which might have missed out on vaccination, he said.

Mr De Graaf also informed the community to expect announcement soon by President Lt Gen. Seretse Khama Ian Khama on how best the farming community could be assisted regarding the drought that had crippled them. He said government was aware of the serious drought situation the community was facing adding that an assessment had been conducted and a report compiled.

 “Very soon the President would map a way forward and we should expect the good news,” he said. The minister said they did appreciate that the grazing pastures were not impressive noting that without declaring drought, due to failed rains there was going to be a rapid deterioration of rangeland which might lead to serious drought conditions.

For their part, farmers said time had come for the government to declare FMD a disaster and see how best they could be assisted. They said staying seven years without selling their cattle was a serious concern which needed urgent intervention noting many had lost cattle due to the disease.

They were surprised to learn that some cases of foot and mouth had been recorded in Habu noting that it meant the disease would continue to haunt their only source of livelihood. Some farmers called on the government to come up with permanent solution, which could control the disease for good so that the community could regain their living standard.ENDS