The Sunday Mail
Harmony Agere
At least 55 000 cattle have succumbed to tick-borne diseases countrywide since last year, a top official from the Department of Veterinary Services has said.
The principal director in the Department of Veterinary Services, Dr Unesu Ushewokunze-Obatolu, has advised farmers to, “in the meantime”, take the initiative of dipping their cattle into their own hands to avert the nationwide crisis.
“The situation is still quite serious and about 55 000 cattle have died so far since last year,” she said.
“It has been Government’s responsibility to assist small-scale farmers with dipping services but the thing is that Government is currently not in a position to provide chemicals. Therefore, farmers should not just wait for Government but take the initiative to dip their own cattle.”
Among a volley of tick-borne diseases which have resulted in the mass deaths are January, redwater, gall sickness and heartwater. They are caused and spread by deadly blood parasites which live off unvaccinated cattle.
Hardest hit districts are Goromonzi, Marondera, Chikomba, Wedza, Buhera, Chivhu, Gutu, Chegutu, Centenary, Bindura and Shamva.
The director for the Zimbabwe Farmers’ Union, Mr Paul Zakariya, said the situation is very serious as cattle are “dying everyday”.
“Our own reports show that by the end of February, above 51 000 cattle had died,” he said.
“So as an organisation we are doing a nationwide campaign to dip cattle. We have joined hands with the private sector to mobilise resources and this campaign will be done ward by ward. We do not want to leave any farmer behind because that will result in re-infections.”
There is belief that the number of deaths might actually be higher as the Department of Veterinary Services is not currently running dipping services which provide weekly feedback on cattle.
Statistics also indicate that between November 2017 to May 2018, some 3 430 cattle were lost to tick-borne diseases.
By November 2018, the department confirmed over 15 000 cattle deaths, partly because the nation’s dipping stations were going for months without the required chemicals.
It is the small-scale farmers who are affected the most as they relied heavily on Government for dipping cattle. And at 68 percent, they make up the large number of the national herd.
Most of them do not afford to buy required chemicals and are sometimes relying on ineffective traditional methods of dipping cattle.
“Most of us are already struggling because we are not realising much from our operations,” said a Wedza farmer. “And to lose our cattle the way we did is just disaster. We appeal to Government to assist us because the truth is we will never win this war on our own.”
It is reported that tick-borne diseases have wiped out large populations of cattle in Wedza with some households losing their entire herds.
The development is a serious blow to the country’s efforts to rebuild the national herd which has since 2000 been decimated with a plethora of adversities.
Zimbabwe’s national herd is currently standing at around five million against a capacity of 25 million.
Speaking in the House of Assembly recently, the Minister of Agriculture, Land, Water, Climate and Rural Resettlement, Rtd Air Chief Marshall Perrance Shiri, said the Government was aware of continued cattle mortality throughout the country. He said several inconsistencies have made it impossible to deliver the chemicals.
“As Government, we are buying chemicals and taking them to the rural areas so that cattle can get dipping services,” he said. “At times we delay sending these chemicals to the dip tanks in rural areas. Therefore, I am now informing Members of Parliament to go to their constituencies and encourage these farmers to pool their own resources and buy these chemicals. It is pointless for a farmer to be proud of seeing a very big herd of cattle then they die because the farmer cannot sell just one beast to sustain the remaining ones.”
Research shows that the distribution of tick species in Zimbabwe is significantly influenced by land utilisation practices.
The most commonly occurring species is Boophilus decoloratus.
By contrast, well-managed commercial farms and ranches support a wide range of tick species, the most common being the Rhipicephalus appendiculatus.
Tick-borne diseases are effectively controlled by dipping.
The emergence of the tick-borne diseases is likely to hamper the initiative to revive the Cold Storage Company. The company has started refurbishing its infrastructure and ranches across the country as it prepares to resume full-scale operations, which will create more than 600 jobs under a US$400 million deal.
At its peak, the beef processor and marketer used to handle up to 150 000 tonnes of beef and associated by-products annually and exported to the European Union, where it had an annual quota of 9 100 tonnes of beef. The company used to earn the country about $45 million per year.
