Cash for dead cattle as restocking comes to an end
Maranyane Ngwanaamotho | Tuesday October 21, 2014 17:37
He said that the farmers were paid cash at the rate of P2, 500 per beast provided the farmers furnished the department with adequate evidence.
The price is given regardless of the breed the farmer had. Dr. Makgetho said that the animals died after they were handed over to farmers due to a variety of causes including drought and diseases. In addition, Dr. Makgetho confirmed that the ministry had completed the restocking of cattle and small stock except for dairy cattle.
Reasons as to why diary cattle were left behind were not given. Also complete is the construction of the protection zone fence in the areas.
The restocking exercise started in 2012 following a mass culling of cattle and small stock in Zones 6 and 7 to contain the Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD) in the areas.
The disease eradication exercise saw the culling of 51, 000 cattle in Zone 6 and some parts of the adjoining Zone 7 in the Bobirwa area. The government sold some of animals that were suitable for human consumption from infected areas to the Cold Storage Commission of Zimbabwe, and raised P50 million from the sale.
Meanwhile, Deputy Director of Veterinary Services, Dr Kekgonne Baipoledi recently informed the media that the government would no longer have to cull animals to control FMD as the Botswana Vaccine Institute (BVI) has developed a purified vaccine against the disease.
“The purified FMD vaccine will enable us to differentiate animals which have been infected naturally. We have also seen that culling livestock destroys the genetic pool of the breed unique to an area,” said Baipoledi. “Also culling of livestock is an expensive exercise to the government. “To the farmers it is a very sensitive matter which not only affects their livelihood. Like we have seen in 2011, many farmers had to go through counselling,” he added. The Minister of Agriculture Christian De Graaff has previously said that although the disease was under control, they were not yet out of the woods because of rampant movement of people and cattle on the other side of the Zimbabwe border which was a real threat to Botswana.
The other threat the minister alluded to was the destruction of the fence by elephants along the Shashe River and consequently causing cattle to stray into Zone 6.
He said if cattle from Zone 7 crossed into Zone 6, they would be killed and the owners compensated with P400 per beast.