08 Jan 2014

A comprehensive approach to combating the Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD) needs to be put in place, the Vice President, Dr Ponatshego Kedikilwe has said.

Dr Kedikilwe said livestock owners in Zone six and seven, Bobirwa area, North East District and other areas affected by FMD should work together and come up with ways to fight the disease. Dr Kedikilwe, who is also Mmadinare MP, was addressing a kgotla meeting in Robelela on January 7.

All sectors of the economy, he said, should also contribute to this endeavour. Furthermore, he said a joint strategy pitso on FMD should be held to also tackle the issue where organisations such as BOCCIM and SPEDU, among others, would be involved to help come with ways to fight FMD.

He also challenged residents of Robelela to come up with ways of combating FMD noting that if their ideas were effective, government would support them.

Also, he noted that the idea to divide Zone seven in an effort to combat FMD was a notable one but other factors such as how the area should be divided and the impact of the move on livestock and cattle farming should be considered.

Furthermore, the Vice President said other alternatives such as slightly diverting from cattle farming in the area to agronomy where people would keep a lesser number of cattle and engage in producing cattle feed such as lab-lab to sell to farmers in other parts of the country could be considered.

He said turning the area into an agronomy zone that could act as a buffer zone for preventing interaction of FMD infected cattle from Zimbabwe and wild animals with those in Botswana could also be looked into.

He also raised a concern that many cattle from Zone C12 that were given to farmers in Robelela through the restocking exercise had died. He said his constituency office was due to liaise with the Ministry of Agriculture to establish the cause of death.

He explained that the cattle restocking exercise cost government a lot of money but at the end of the day the initiative did not effectively benefit farmers in Robelela.

He noted that there could be many reasons behind the death of the cattle in which some of the issues include the fact that farmers did not vaccinate the cattle to prevent heart water disease after relocation to the Robelela because they were not informed by veterinary officers to take such precautions.

In addition, he said the inability for cattle from the sandy areas in the C12 zone to adapt accordingly to the Robelela area environment could have caused the death of the animals.

Also, materials such as sacks, plastics reported to have been found in the stomach of such cattle could have caused the death of the domestic animals. Dr Kedikilwe further called on farmers to utilise the prescribed farming method under ISPAAD such as row planting to improve their yield.

He said many farmers still practice the broadcasting method adding that agriculture Officers should continue to advise and encourage farmers to adopt the row planting technique.

He also called on residents of Robelela to take the responsibility of having national identity cards, ‘Omang’ so that they could benefit from government initiatives.

Some residents of Robelela decried that they did not have Omang cards to apply for residential plot certificates in order to be able to have water access cards. ENDS