A US$10.3 million donation by the United Nations to Zimbabwe for combating foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) will be insufficient unless the ruling ZANU-PF party government also contributes to the fight against the cattle sickness, the country's veterinarians said.
The recurrence of FMD has become an almost annual event for the past seven years, and in 2001 led to the European Union (EU) cancelling its 9,100mt beef quota, worth an annual US$38 million or about 4 percent of foreign currency earnings, because of Zimbabwe's failure to control livestock diseases.
"Government should pour in more money and intensify its efforts to eradicate cattle diseases," said local veterinarian Luke Streak. "The traditional outbreak of foot-and-mouth ... especially [in areas] ... close to the border with Botswana, remains a serious threat that should be brought under control if our national herd is to be revived and preserved. The [UN] money is just too little, considering the scale of the problem."
Small-scale farmers have seen their livestock decimated by outbreaks of highly contagious FMD, a viral disease carried by wild buffalo, which does not affect humans but has devastating effects on animals with cloven hooves, such as cattle, pigs, sheep, goats and deer, as well as anthrax, a disease caused by the bacillus anthracis, which can also infect humans.
The government's failure to address bovine diseases has reduced Zimbabwe's national herd from 1.4 million head of cattle in 2000 to about 250,000 at present.
Mandlenkosi Dube, a farmer in the village of Maphisa, near the Botswana border in Matabeleland South Province, said he had a flourishing herd of 30 cattle five years ago, but since the onset of FMD and other livestock diseases, he has been left with just five.
"Like most people here, I rely on my livestock for survival. For instance, for me to be able to pay school fees for my three children I have to sell one cow or at least three goats. Also, we use the cattle for draught power [to plough] ... But there has been a problem of cattle diseases over the years that have killed our animals," he told IRIN.
"One neighbour of mine is now left with only one from a herd of ten, in two years ... This has grossly compromised our livelihoods because ... even if I am broke, I can no longer sell any other beasts because they are now [too] few," Dube said.
An outbreak of FMD last year in Botswana was blamed on Zimbabwe: a shortage of dipping chemicals, leaving animals more vulnerable to infection; and the break-up of large commercial farms after President Robert Mugabe's fast-track land reform began in 2000, which redistributed white farmland to landless blacks, with one of the consequences a failure to maintain fencing, allowing the disease to spread through contact between domestic animals and wild animals.
Zimbabwe's economic meltdown, with inflation soaring to 1,281 percent and unemployment levels touching 80 percent, has brought an upswing in unofficial cross-border trade and cattle rustling. Botswana police and veterinary officers along the border have consistently accused small-scale butchers in Botswana of fuelling stock-theft and smuggling by buying stolen Zimbabwean animals at give-away prices.
The 2006 outbreak of FMD in Botswana forced the Lobatse and Francistown abattoirs to shut down and recall beef shipments en route to Europe, Reunion and South Africa. The losses to the beef industry were not disclosed, although the chief executive of the Botswana Meat Commission, Motshudi Raborokgwe, said at the time the outbreak threatened the survival of the industry.
Since the 1950s, Botswana's national herd has increased from a few hundred thousand to three million head of cattle, and the annual beef quota exported to the EU is worth over US$100 million.
Zimbabwe's veterinary services department said it would use the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) donation to import vaccines and dipping chemicals, to be distributed mainly in southern Zimbabwe, where new cases of FMD and anthrax have been reported.
Departmental spokesperson Stuart Hargreaves said the acute shortage of foreign exchange had hamstrung the government's efforts to provide communities and farmers with the necessary livestock vaccines, which was allowing outbreaks of bovine diseases. According to department officials, cattle in various parts of the country had gone for more than six months without being vaccinated or dipped.
The most acutely affected region is Matabeleland South, bordering Botswana and South Africa, a mainly cattle-rearing province. Hargreaves said the government was doing its best to procure dipping chemicals to avoid the unnecessary loss of animals.
"The problem is the shortage of foreign currency, but we are working hard to get all the chemicals so that we can revive our national heard as a matter of urgency. We have lost hundreds of animals due to recurrent droughts, and FMD and Anthrax remain our major worries, hence our redoubled efforts to rectify these problems," he told IRIN.
The state-controlled Herald newspaper reported this week that in the last two months more than 200 cattle had died from anthrax in Masvingo Province, bordering Mozambique, in the southeast of the country. The Cattle Producers Association (CPA) said uncontrolled movements of cattle remained the major cause of FMD and anthrax outbreaks.
"FMD continues to haunt us; veterinary services' ability to source vaccine from other countries is directly related to the availability of foreign currency to pay our debts, and this has been a major problem," a recent CPA report pointed out. "However, vaccination is not the total solution to FMD control and, until the fundamental issue of illegal cattle movement is addressed, Zimbabwe will continue to see the recurrence of FMD."
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