11 Dec 2013

Assistant Minister of Agriculture Mr Oreeditse Molebatsi says Shoshong Constituency has six  veterinary extension areas of Mosolotshane, Otse, Shoshong , Kodibeleng, Kalamare and Poloka in which there are about 123 000 cattle.


Answering a question in Parliament recently he said currently all the areas were manned by extension officers except Kodibeleng and Poloka. He said the extension officers were supervised by Technical officer based at Shoshong and get professional assistance from Veterinarian in Mahalapye. He further said that due to the nature of their production system which was predominantly communal, they preferred crushes as opposed to number of Livestock per office.

Mr Molebatsi said a crush was a unit equivalent to a commercial ranch or a dip tank in some of neighboring countries. He indicated that thus they speak of number of crushes per extension officer, noting that currently the ideal ratio is about 15 to 20 crushes per extension agent, depending on the distribution of crushes.



The assistant minister said that in Shoshong area there were about 385 crushes, which translates to about 20 extension officers.Mr Molebatsi said that unfortunately they could not afford the number owing to financial constraints and said it was hoped that with the improvement of the economic situation, more extension staff would be hired to reduce the ratio and improve service delivery.


He stated that when deploying officers in extension areas, consideration was given not only to the number of livestock but also to the number of farmers in the area and thus a village with several smallholder farmers would have priority over a cluster of commercial farmers who may each have more cattle than the village.


Mr Molebatsi said they were faced with inadequate numbers of staff not in Shoshong, but nationwide, adding that part of the problem was that extension officers were overwhelmed as they have to do many activities such as vaccinations, inserting boluses, ear tagging, treatment of animals and movement permits.

Mr Molebatsi said it takes time and requires unaffordable high numbers of extension staff and in this regard they were considering hiving off some of the easy and routine tasks such as vaccinations, ear tagging and others to farmers and the private sector.
He was responding to a question from the Member of Parliament for Shoshong Mr Phillip Makgalemele who had asked about the establishment register of professional staff who ideally should support the livestock sector in the Shoshong constituency and the extent of shortages if any.

Mr Makgalemele wanted to know the standard ratio of such staff per number of livestock and the prevailing situation in the Shoshong constituency. He also wanted to know the extent to which the minister takes into consideration the population of livestock held in farms and those held in communal areas when deploying staff in places such as Mosolotshane, Morolane, Kodibeleng and Otse given the large population of livestock on the western side of these villages. ENDS