Govt to slaughter small stock soon

PINI BOTHOKO
Correspondent | Wednesday June 12, 2013 00:00

Deputy director of the Department of Veterinary Services (DVS) Kekgonne Baipoledi revealed this on Tuesday at a press conference, which was also addressed by the Francistown FMD project coordinator and North East district commissioner Rapetse Mathumo. Also at the briefing were epidemiologist Dr Bernard Mbeha from the DVS and NEDC agricultural coordinator Alfred Mashungwa.Baipoledi explained that the collection of small stock started on Monday and within 10 days the slaughtering will commence.

He said that consultations with farmers about the depopulation of small stock started last month and they have participated in the logistics of this project.'The most affected areas in Zone 6 are Matsiloje, Matshelagabedi, Matlopi, and Patayamatebele. We started with vaccinating the sheep and goats, expecting the virus to die, but we failed to kill it as it was still present when we went for another testing,' he said.

Baipoledi added that this was the reason that forced them to take a decision to eliminate all of the small stock in the affected area as part of the FMD eradication strategy.'The time that we went back to do the re-test of small stock we found that the virus had already passed to the offspring before they were born. We started by sending our well-trained staff, with the help of social workers, to go and address farmers about the depopulation exercise to prepare them for the exercise,' said Baipoledi.

He said that they took along social workers to counsel the stricken farmers whose cattle were also recently slaughtered in efforts to eradicate the disease.He said that first there were 30,000 small stock that were supposed to be slaughtered.But the number might go up when adding newly born kids, or less considering that some farmers were slaughtering their animals for weddings, funerals and other events, he said. Baipoledi said that they have engaged casual workers from the affected areas to help them collect the small stock so that the exercise can also benefit community members.He said next week they will start consulting farmers about the construction of a fence to make sure that the affected animals do not mix with the unaffected ones.

He said that they also want to make sure that if the outbreak comes in the future they are well-prepared to control it within the affected area.'Since last year we have been doing disease surveillance testing in wild animals and domestic livestock. I am proud to say this disease has not yet been found amongst pigs. We have only found it in buffalos and they are the only animals that can carry this disease for a long period of time,' he said.Baipoledi said that restocking of small stock would be done after three months, as they are hoping that with this exercise they will overcome FMD in small stock in the area.

Mathumo said that they have been holding Kgotla meetings to counsel affected grieving farmers.'These people,' she said referring to the farmers, 'have been hurt before when their cattle were killed, and telling them that their goats will also be killed is a difficult situation. But we have been dealing with this sensitive issue for quite sometime and farmers are understanding'.