Climate change huge threat to livestock sector
IN recent years, Zimbabwe has lost thousands of cattle to drought and diseases. In response, the Government has rolled out multiple interventions to curb livestock deaths and grow the national herd. The
Sunday Mail’s THESEUS SHAMBARE (TS) spoke to Veterinary Field Services Department director DR JAIRUS
MACHAKWA (JM) on these and other developments. *****************
TS: How has climate change affected the livestock sector in Zimbabwe?
JM: Climate change is a threat to livestock production.
The direct effects of climate change include, for example, higher temperatures and changing rainfall patterns, which could translate to increased spread of existing vector-borne diseases and macroparasites, accompanied by the emergence and circulation of new diseases.
In some areas, climate change could also generate new transmission models.
Looking at the increasing temperatures, as well as the frequency and intensity of heat waves, these environmental conditions can affect livestock health by causing metabolic disruptions, oxidative stress and immune suppression, causing diseases and death.
Higher temperatures increase lignin formation in plant tissues, thereby reducing the digestibility and rates of degradation of fodder and crop residues in the rumen of animals.
This leads to reduced nutrient availability for animals and ultimately a reduction in livestock production.
Floods also drown livestock, and we have had several such cases in the country.
Recently, we have had incidents where livestock died after being trapped in mud while looking for water in drying water bodies.
The scotching heat that leads to veld fires also causes animal deaths, and the surviving animals invariably die of lack of grazing — the poverty deaths.
In the face of climate phenomena such as El Niños, farmers sell their livestock for a song to minimise losses.
They, thus, fall prey to speculators who impoverish them by buying livestock, including breeding stock, at suboptimal prices as farmers try to salvage value out of desperation.
In terms of the occurrence and distribution of animal diseases, climate change has changed what has been known to be the normal patterns and distribution of diseases and pests.
Traditionally, there were animal diseases and pests that were limited to certain geographic regions, while others were associated with certain climatic conditions.
For instance, January disease was known to be a disease prevalent in high rainfall areas, in the Highveld.
It affected cattle during the rainy season, with the tick known to survive more or less strictly in the Highveld areas.
Today, the tick appears to have adapted to survive in all regions of our country, even in the Lowveld — the high temperature and low rainfall areas.
The disease is no longer confined to the rainy season, but now appears almost all year round.
The previously mapped and legislated “anthrax areas” are also changing, or increasing, and all because of climate change. As the climate changes, so does the availability and nutritional content of grazing pastures.
To this effect, we see farmers moving their animals far and wide in search of grazing land.
The effect of moving animals across different animal disease zones helps spread animal diseases from one area to the other.
This negates the Government’s effort to control animal disease, such as the huge investment in cattle dipping, tick-borne disease control and foot-and-mouth disease prevention through vaccination.
Animal traceability becomes a problem and stock theft becomes more rampant.
Climate change has resulted in adverse nutritional effects that have contributed to animals becoming smaller and smaller in their frame, in areas where we previously had very large animals.
It is now not unusual to see adult cattle weighing just as much as big goats.
On the economics of running livestock as a business, the costs of raising livestock significantly rise as farmers begin to rely on commercial feed, especially as the availability and quality of grazing become unsustainable.
Naturally, the high costs of production reduce farmers’ profit margins.
Huge costs associated with disease control also make farmers realise below-optimal profits.
Indeed, climate change is a huge threat to the livestock sector. TS: What are you doing to curb livestock diseases and deaths?
JM: Many cattle have died due to the ongoing drought.
The Government has taken steps to address the situation by drilling boreholes nationwide to save livestock and people’s lives.
Through the Livestock Recovery and Growth Plan, the Government is rolling out measures to improve production and productivity, paving the way for the sector to play a key role in transforming the lives of millions of farmers and creating a source of raw materials for local industries.
To mitigate the effects of drought, hay bales are being distributed in the high-risk areas, where over 1,4-million cattle were identified as being prone to drought conditions and poverty deaths, especially in the southern provinces.
The Government is also prioritising borehole drilling in these areas.
Farmers have been provided with biomass seed to ensure that livestock receive nutritious feed. Moreover, the Government, through the Ministry of Lands, Agriculture, Fisheries, Water and Rural Development, is promoting the production of small stock as part of the climate change adaptation interventions.
The small stock is climate-smart, which is why the Presidential Goat Scheme and Presidential Poultry Pass-on Programme have been rolled out.
The ministry has created the Department of Livestock Production and Development (LPD), under the Directorate of Agricultural Advisory and Rural Development Services (ARDAS), to ensure full implementation of all best practices in livestock production and development countrywide, leaving no one and no place behind.
The situation is being continuously monitored and strategies are being developed, reviewed and implemented to ensure we save and increase the national herd. TS: For livestock diseases such as January disease, what is being done to curb their spread? JM: Livestock diseases in the country follow a predictable pattern in terms of their epidemiology, although we are seeing some distortions that we can attribute to adaptation of the disease-causing agents to climatic changes.
Most diseases are spread through vectors and are highly prevalent during the rainy season.
To counter these outbreaks, the department is undertaking awareness programmes, facilitating cattle dipping and vaccinating livestock at specific times.
Livestock vaccination calendars have been created that specify the months for certain vaccinations.
For example, vaccinations against vector-borne diseases such as lumpy skin disease should be done before the rainy season, between September and October.
Tick-borne diseases such as January disease are most common between December and April, and, therefore, we increase our dipping frequency and ensure there are sufficient stocks of dipping chemicals during this time.
It is particularly important to mention here that Treasury, under the Second Republic, has prioritised resource allocation to animal disease control, and funding is a critical and an inalienable component of disease control. TS: The Government has placed growth of the national herd at the centre of its livestock development programme. What measures have you put in place to facilitate this? JM: In 2020, the Government came up with a blueprint to address the poor performance of the livestock sector.
Key challenges underlying the poor performance included low offtake, low fertility, high mortality and morbidity, low carcass weight, poor quality and inability to compete in the export market.
So, the Government approved the Livestock Recovery and Growth Plan (20212026) to increase livestock production and productivity.
The blueprint seeks to transform farmers’ livelihoods and provide raw materials for industrial development.
The plan addresses issues related to animal health, sanitation, feed safety, adequate nutrition, genetics and infrastructure suitable for accessing lucrative domestic, regional and international markets.
The goal is to reduce livestock mortality and develop more productive livestock systems adapted to meet the challenges of climate change, which causes frequent droughts.
The Government is providing maximum support to initiatives aimed at boosting productivity in the livestock sector.
It expects the industry to grow to US$3,4 billion and reaching the milestone of US$2 billion livestock economy by 2025.
In 2021, the livestock industry was worth US$1,1 billion and it has grown by 36 percent to US$1,5 billion.
The Livestock Recovery and Growth Plan aims to put in place solid interventions to address production and productivity issues, as well as strengthen animal disease surveillance and control systems.
The Government has taken measures to protect the national herd from tick-borne diseases that killed nearly 500 000 cattle during the rainy seasons over the past few years.
It has constructed and rehabilitated dip tanks and is manufacturing animal vaccines to fight tick-borne diseases.
Government aims to build the national herd to six million by 2025 to meet national demand for meat and dairy products, and resume export trade.
This requires not just breeding more cattle, but also ensuring that none are killed by disease.
Various measures have been implemented to improve the quality of livestock, including artificial insemination, crossbreeding with semen from selected quality bulls and vaccination programmes.
The Government, through the Presidential Blitz Tick Grease Programme, supported a minimum of one million farming households annually consistently from 2020 to date, a significant boost in the fight against January disease, and the programme is continuing.
However, the presence of diseases, along with the perceived risk from emerging and re-emerging diseases that have the potential to decimate the sector, is cause for concern.
Improved disease surveillance, management and awareness initiatives are needed, as well as the enforcement of livestock dipping across all farming sectors, including commercial farms.
Infrastructure and equipment need to be established and maintained, including drilling of boreholes for water supply to dip tanks and rehabilitation of damaged dip tanks to ensure most farmers have access to the most cost-effective tick and tick-borne disease control infrastructure.
The Government also plans to construct 5 000 dip tanks by 2025. Fortunately, there has been significant improvement in the livestock sector, which is currently growing at a rate of 2 to 3 percent per year.
The national herd needs to be grown to ensure growth of the livestock economy. The Livestock Recovery and Growth Plan has already led to an increase in the national herd, and the cattle mortality rate has dropped from 13 percent before 2020 to about 6 percent per year. In 2021, the January disease mortality dropped by 47 percent, and then the following year it dropped by 37 percent.