Fresh FMD outbreak sends shockwaves

BONIFACE KEAKABETSE
Correspondent | Tuesday March 15, 2011 00:00

A Department of Veterinary Services press release on Wednesday confirmed a case of FMD in the Kareng area.

The case was reportedly noticed on a beast during inspections on cattle from the Kareng area at the Maun Abattoir.  The department soon resumed strict cattle movement restrictions in the areas south of the Setata cordon fence to curb the disease spread. 'Movement of the cloven-hoofed animals out of, within and in to Kareng, Semboyo, Makakung, Bodibeng and Sehitwa extension areas has been suspended with immediate effect,' read part of the press statement.

A farmer in the area, Keapoletswe Keapoletswe said the disease re-emergence has now made them lose hope.'

We are doomed. Our lives hinge on cattle; this disease is bad news for us all,' he told Mmegi in an interview.

Kareng councillor Lekopanye Ledimo told Mmegi that a lot of farmers cannot afford to buy fuel and spare parts for the borehole engines due to FMD restrictions. He said the farmers could not even afford to buy uniforms for their children or pay school fees. He said the farmers had hoped to utilise the market afforded by the reopening of the Maun Abattoir of the Botswana Meat Commission (BMC), but with the disease re-emergence it means they will again not be able to sell their beasts - not even to the butcheries.

Still reeling from the devastation of the first FMD outbreak at Habu Extension areas in October 2007, indications were that the situation was improving, as no new cases had been reported since the last case at Bodibeng crush of Mmaseipei in November 2009.

The Kareng area has probably suffered the consequences of FMD more than any other area in Ngamiland. Located near the Kuke cordon fence, which separates Ngamiland communal cattle areas from the Ghanzi commercial cattle farms, any case of FMD in Kareng poses a threat to Ghantsi district, which is Botswana's beef industry prime area.

Following the spread of the disease into Ghantsi from Ngamiland in 2008, the Kareng area suffered stringent cattle movement to curb more spreads into Nhanzi. Almost all the farmers in this area are still indebted to the National Development Bank (NDB) under the FMD Relief Fund, which was set up by the government to assist Ngamiland farmers with loans following the outbreak. Under the scheme, farmers could pledge a head of cattle for P1,500 to the NDB. From the total of P105 million worth of loans, owed to the bank by Ngamiland farmers under the scheme, only a paltry P1 million has been paid off.

Government decided to reopen the abattoir, which was closed down 14 years after the outbreak of cattle lung disease in the district and the entire 320,000 cattle culled in Ngamiland to control the disease. Following a Cabinet directive to utilise the export levy, government introduced at the Maun BMC abattoir improved prices ranging from P7 (grade 4) to P17 (prime grade) specifically for the FMD ravaged cattle farmers in Ngamiland.

Beef from the district is sold only within the country and in the district. According to the press release the Kareng farmers will not be able to sell until further notice. Mmegi's efforts to reach the Ngamiland Integrated Farmers Association chairman, Simon Bojosi, whose association caters for the Kareng farmers, were futile by the time of going to press as his mobile phone was off.

Local farmers blame the Ministry of Agriculture for failure to control the spread of diseases in the district. The farmers particularly want the ministry to strengthen the maintenance of the buffalo fence from the side of the Moremi Game Reserve to stop buffaloes, which are carriers of the FMD virus from encroaching into the livestock areas.

Last year, the farmers called on the government to come up with a permanent strategy that will prevent easy spread of the diseases in the district during Vice-President Mompati Merafhe's series of Kgotla meetings.

According to the Ngamiland District land use plan, 63 percent of the tribal land in Ngamiland district has been zoned for communal use, which gives all the tribesmen access to grazing and to natural surface water for livestock watering in communal areas. Apart from the Tribal Grazing Land Policy (TGLP) ranches in the Hainaveld, in the south of Maun that have been developed as a commercial livestock zone, free movement of cattle in the communal areas makes it difficult to control the diseases.

Merafhe informed the farmers in a Kgotla meeting in Maun on November 11, last year that the government came up with an initiative to set up a protective zone to separate and mitigate cattle contact between the diseases-prone Ngamiland from Nganzi and the Boteti (Zone 4A) which was last year declared an FMD free zone.

The erection of the 300km protective zone, which will cost the government P30 million will cut off the Hainaveld farms from the rest of Ngamiland.