It is hard to imagine a
group of people who are more innocuous and of all the professions amongst the
most highly regarded. After all it is the vet who often saves what are ‘man’s
best friends’ and treats cattle, the source of traditional wealth in both
Namibia and Botswana, when they faced deadly diseases. So how can a group
of scientists who are the pillars of their community be the cause of poverty in
vast swathes of Zambezi Region (northeastern Namibia) and in Ngamiland (in
western Botswana).
For almost a decade now
both regions have experience increased frequency of occurrence of
foot-and-mouth (FMD)disease , which is a result of poor vaccines and apparently
increasing proximity between cattle and buffalo, which are the main source of
the disease in Southern Africa. If your cattle were raised in an FMD area then their
meat cannot be sold to the EU, the USA, China or even in parts of your country that
is recognized free of the disease. The traditional way in which all our vets
have been taught in their studies throughout the world to deal with FMD has
been through separation of animal populationsand vaccination against FMD.When
an outbreak occurs, you stop movement of cattle and you vaccinate- set up
a containment area of up to 60 km around the diseased animals and you wait six
months until after the last case before you allow exports of beef to occur
again. The only problem is that it no longer works. For a decade the
Kavango-Zambezi region, which stretches across five countries, Angola,
Botswana, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe has been suffering from increasing
frequency of outbreaks of FMD. The old way of resolving this problem is causing
financial chaos in the effected regions and impoverishing the people of Zambezi
and Ngamiland.
But vets, like most
scientists are creatures of intellectual habit and have simply advocated the
same response to FMD- more fences, more restrictions on livestock
marketing and more vaccinations but the people of Zambezi and Ngamiland
have suffered terribly as a result. They have not been able to move their
cattle freely, often for many months and have experienced worsening poverty as
a result. At least in Ngamiland there is an abattoir where cattle from FMD
areas can be slaughtered and traded. The government of Botswana has provided
massive subsidies to keep an otherwise unprofitable abattoir going because if
it closed the cattle would be worthless except for domestic use or smuggling.
This is precisely the
situation facing farmers in Zambezi Region of Namibia where the abattoir at KatimaMulilo
has been closed sinceAugust 2015. An abattoir is a factory and needs to
run at a high and constant rate of utilization to make a profit. Because of the
FMD, the lack of economies of scale and the regular closures of the
abattoir due to FMD, the people have no external market for their beef. It can
only be sold for local consumption or, more commonly smuggled across borders to
make something of a profit. Since August this year Meatco has started a system
of mobile slaughter in Kavango East Region and the Ministry of Agriculture,
Water and Forestry is constructing a $110 million abattoir and meat processing
facility in Rundu, which is near completion.
So in response to the
problems confronting farmers the response is the development of another
facility in Namibia, which proceeds without much policy analysis, or thought
that perhaps the best way of dealing with this regional problem is through
regional co-operation rather than pouring more money into the same type of
responses. But the solution is for vets to adopt the changes to international
standards in the Terrestrial Code of the World Organization for Animal Health,
known as the OIE (acronym from its previous French name, Office International
des Epizooties). Ironically, the vets have requested for these changes based on
studies conducted in Namibia and they voted for them at their OIE General
Assembly in May last year.
FMD does not cause any
disease in people. It is also entirely possible to safely trade meat from an
FMD area but the meat has to be maturated, deboned, and the major lymph nodes removed
and handled hygienically. This beef can be traded and consumed safely
without any risk to other animals. Angola imports large volumes of such beef
from India,where FMD is endemic and is yet the world’s largest exporter of beef.
Unfortunately Botswana tried to export beef from Ngamiland, an FMD area, to
Angola but was blocked, without an iota of scientific justification, from even
transiting Namibia for a few hours in seal-secured and leak-proof refrigerated
trucks from Shakawe under escort to Katwitwi via Rundu. Beef from Ngamiland,
although it is derived from cattle that were raised in an FMD area, is produced
under the OIE standards rendering it safe for trade. This decision of the Namibian Veterinary
Authority is indefensible, has no basis in science and has caused real
bitterness and mistrust on the other side of the border.Now Botswana can only
make shipments to Angola via Beira Port in Mozambique, this despite having a
dry port at Walvis Bay.
This alternative way of
allowing meat to be moved and traded fromendemic FMD areas is well known to the
veterinary services of the region, which have in many places, including Namibia,
been the main block to change. The instant FMD is mentioned our vets
instinctively shut down livestock movement and trade. In India they do the
opposite, they encourage trade in bovine meat – FMD or no FMD. In Africa we
impoverish our people by discouraging trade without any scientific
justification whatsoever.
It is absurd and
outrageous that African nations block each other from trading with each other,
and in the process allow India to dominate a trade that we can easily supply.
But what it requires is a different mind-set from the region’s veterinary
services and intervention by our health and trade ministers. The nations that
border this Kavango- Zambezi basin urgently need political intervention from
the Agriculture and Trade ministers and not from the vets to make real
progress. It requires ministers to sign a protocol that would allow commodity-based
trade, which is supported by OIE standards requested for and voted in by the
Chief Veterinary Officers of OIE member countries including Namibia and
Botswana. The benefits to Namibia and Botswana of such co-operation are
potentially enormous. We waste enormous resources building national
infrastructure and rather than allowing cross border trade e.g. from allowing
cattle from the FMDareas of the Ngoma and Kasanetriangle to be slaughtered say in
Katima Mulilo, Namibia, which is a stone throw away. Or allowing cattlefrom far
eastern parts of Kavango East Region to be slaughtered in Maun, Botswana. All
of this intra-regionaltrade is entirely possible but now requires
ministerial intervention.
The people of the
Kavango-Zambezi region suffered greatly during the long war against apartheid.
They deserve better than to be impoverished by vets who are living in another
century. The Trade and Agriculture ministers need to act now to allow trade and
to facilitate international co-operation in beef or they, and not the vets,
should be held responsible for their peoples’ suffering.
These are the views of
Professor Roman Grynberg and not necessarily those of UNAM where he is
employed.
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