THE president of the Namibia National Farmers Union (NNFU), Jason Emvula, says while the lifting of foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) restrictions in the Zambezi region is welcome, it brings few economic benefits to the farmers in the region.
“The biggest issue is that farmers in the northern communal areas (NCA), including the Zambezi region, still do not have access to lucrative markets like their counterparts farming south of the redline,” Emvula said yesterday.
“Most abattoirs in the NCA are closed due to viability problems, and farmers have nowhere to sell their livestock, except to vendors at open markets,” he said.
The Directorate of Veterinary Services on Monday announced the lifting of the FMD restrictions imposed on the Zambezi region after the disease broke out in May last year.
“According to the intensive disease surveillance conducted by the directorate, the last confirmed case of FMD was reported on 4 November 2021.
“In line with the Namibia FMD contingency plan, outbreak restrictions in the FMD protection and infected zones can be lifted three months after the last confirmed case. As such, 4 February 2022 marked three months after the last confirmed FMD case in the region.
“All the restrictions imposed as a result of the FMD outbreak in the Zambezi region are therefore lifted with immediate effect,” said a statement dated 14 February, signed by chief veterinary officer Albertina Shilongo.
Shilongo said vaccinations against FMD will continue in the Zambezi region to prevent future outbreaks.
Emvula, whose union’s members are predominantly farmers in the northern parts of Namibia, called for the levelling of the playing field to benefit farmers in the NCA and the Zambezi region.
While farmers in the north cannot sell meat south of the redline, producers from the south send their meat to the north, thereby flooding the market and edging out northern farmers who do not have abattoirs.
Emvula said there is a ministerial directive that government institutions in the north should source meat from within the NCA to boost farmers, but these institutions continue buying meat south of the redline.
He bemoaned the enforcing of FMD restrictions as it lumps the whole NCA together as if it were a single farm.
“Even the Kunene region, which has never recorded a single case of FMD, is put under restrictions if there is an outbreak, say in the Omusati or Oshana region. That is unfair to those cattle farmers in the Kunene,” he said.
Emvula believes the issue of the removal of the redline is political, as well as a disease-control measure.
“The political aspect was solved at independence, because everyone can travel across the redline at any time of the day without being subjected to producing a pass.
“As a disease-control measure, its removal needs national consensus. Moving it to the Namibia-Angola border would need bilateral agreements between the two countries, and communities living along the border would cut the fence to visit relatives on either side. This would turn out to be a huge national waste of resources,” he said.
The governor of the Zambezi region, Lawrence Sampofu, could yesterday not be reached for comment.
Email: matthew@namibian.com.na
