FMD mitigation

ONALENNA MODIKWA
Staff Writer | Friday June 17, 2011 00:00

The Assistant Minister of Agriculture Oreeditse Molebatsi has said that this will be done urgently to prevent disease recurrence once and for all. Addressing the community from villages in the zone 7 in Mmadinare yesterday Molebatsi said ranches are necessary in that if the disease is detected in one ranch, it is only cattle in that ranch that will be affected unlike where the whole zone will be affected. 'This is what we are planning to do.' The Assistant Minister also said they are in the process of demarcating zone 7 to ensure an improved management of the disease. He however expressed concern over the absence of the farmers associations among the communities in zone 7 adding that the associations would be having powers to address some of the farmers concerns. 'As long as there are no farmers associations in place nobody will make veterinary officials account for your complaints'.

He also promised that his ministry would ensure that patrols will be intensified along the border line. Molebatsi further advised farmers that only affected animals bearing a legally registered brand would be legible for compensation after culling.

The community had expressed concern that the P1700,00 compensation for the affected cattle is too little and would only bring poverty to them and asked the Assistant Minister to ask government to revisit it. They indicated that there would be more challenges after culling as more affected cattle will continue to be discovered as a result of the close proximity of cattle posts in zone 7 because cattle there share grazing areas. Another resident the current outbreak cannot be reversed but it is wiser to devise sustainable prevention measures to ensure no future outbreaks. 'Cattle from different cattle posts get to contact each other at water sources. Some dams have turned out to present more problems of disease transmission than their initial mandate of providing water. There should be consultations to the effect that such dams be filled up.' Residents also indicated that a law empowering agric officials patrolling the borderline should be enacted than to replace them with law enforcement officials who would be having specific assignments to do. They had also asked the Assistant Minister to consider allocating plots for ranches along the border to prevent free cattle movements.

Tshokwe village headman on the other hand argued that culling was ill conceived before a thorough surveillance was carried out. 'Let us suspend culling for now and concentrate efforts on intensifying security along the border. We were not even consulted on the culling exercise or the price for compensation.