Villagers count losses

LIVINGSTONE MARUFU

Mudzi villagers have lost over 20,000 cattle to theileriosis, better known as January disease, amid calls to consider small livestock.

Zimbabwe has lost over 500 000 cattle since 2018 to January disease but the authorities have scaled up the war against theileriosis as it eyes a herd of six million cattle in the next few years under the livestock recovery plan.

Despite the heightened fight against January disease, the Mudzi population has lost thousands of cattle from November to February.

Speaking at the sidelines of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Lean season assistance programme, Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare minister Paul Mavima said there is a need for Mudzi people to consider small livestock.

“I have learnt that half of the Mudzi population which is around 158 000 has lost cattle to theileriosis. This has left most of the people here without draught power for ferrying food and inputs from the collection points.

“Going forward, the locals should scale up the rearing of small livestock to get a living,” Mavima said.

With over 37 000 people waiting to collect their USAID food assistance hamper, there were less than 100 scorch carts to ferry food home.

This meant many people were pooling scorch carts together to carry the hampers or carry on heads 15km away.

Villagers are pained by the loss of cattle.

“The situation is so bad that some of us have lost seven out of nine cattle, leaving only two calves. This is disheartening that some village heads have distributed dip and tick grease way after the damage has already been done.

“We need to take a break from cattle rearing and focus on small livestock. In case the World Food Programme food aid comes through we will pay those who still have cattle to carry food home.

“We now depend on holes for farming thanks to the Pfumvudza programme which mandates farming to use conservative methods to attain impressive yields,” Mudzi villager Takudzwa Katsande said.

This comes as cattle mortality decreased by 3% to 6% in 2022 from 9% in 2021.

Different animal diseases were the major causes of beef cattle mortalities

accounting for 83% of deaths from sampled beef cattle owners.

The decreased cattle mortalities are attributed to improved animal health management especially control of tick-borne diseases in hot spot areas with improved dipping regime and introduction of the intensive 5-5-4 dipping cycle.

Cattle dipping has greatly improved with all farmers sampled reporting that they are dipping their cattle.

It is understood that 68% of the wards reported dipping to be adequate (dipping at least once per week) whilst 32% reported inadequate dipping.

Regular cattle dipping has greatly reduced the number of tick-borne diseases, especially theileriosis (January disease).

The government distributed 1 301 776 kg of tick grease under the second phase of the tick-grease blitz programme, an increase of 21.8% from the first phase.

Each stock owner in the communal areas got 1 kg of tick grease with other stock owners in the (January disease) hit areas getting 2kg each.