Nkayi livestock tragedy, what we need to know as farmers
THIS past week tragedy befell a Nkayi family after they accidentally dosed their animals with poisonous grain protecting tablets and lost 21 animals in the process.
Naturally the media buzzed with the story and as expected there were mixed feelings about the incident with some people opting to lash out at the negligence which cost the family their life investment. Other readers chose a more compassionate route of empathising with the family for their loss and going further to suggest that the family seriously needs psycho-social support and if possible, a form of restitution that can offer them a few animals to start all over again.
Of note being the fact among those who lost animals in this family tragedy, was a 97-yearold lady. I am a livestock farmer as well and so I know very well the stress one goes through when his or her animal is sick or when it dies. It is a very painful process and am talking here of one animal, yet this family lost 21 animals at one go. I know for a fact that the atmosphere at the homestead resembled that of a funeral as villagers visited the homestead to console the family. Being a tragedy that it is, we still need to derive lessons that will help prevent recurrence of a similar incident. This is the point of our discussion this week. The first thing that we need to interrogate is the seemingly easy access of these toxic tablets to the community.
I say easy access because I know for a fact that human lives have been lost and improper use of this same tablet has been cited. Is this not a regulated chemical which should have very strict access procedures? Should such a toxic chemical be available on the counter of every agro-chemical selling outfit?
Maybe there is a slackening of the enforcement of access regulation around this poisonous tablet and other chemicals of similar potency. There is a reason why such dangerous chemicals are strictly regulated and this is to prevent them from finding their way into the hands of poorly prepared users.
The second important lesson is for livestock farmers to understand and respect the colour codes that are on the containers carrying your chemical. Those triangles that come in different colours are communicating the toxicity levels of the chemical to you the user of that chemical so that one can take the necessary precaution.
Any chemical container with a purple triangle means that the chemical is very toxic and hence you should take precaution to avoid poisoning yourself. The avenues of poisoning are not only via oral ingestion, but it can be through inhalation or even contact with the skin. Some of the poisoning is not instant but you may develop some cancers later on in life and by that time you will not even remember to trace it back to use of a very toxic chemical.
In fact all chemicals that have a triangle of one colour or another are unlikely to be administered through oral ingestion. I cannot remember a dosing chemical that has a code triangle. The bottom line here being as farmers let’s know, understand and respect what the colour codes of the chemical labels mean.
The next very important action is to seek information from those who know if you are in doubt especially when using a chemical that you have not used before. Government has extension officers who should be able to help you as a livestock farmer in terms of giving you correct directions on how to use the chemicals. These could be Agritex or VET extension officers and the farmer can contact whoever is nearer to them because VET officers tend to be usually very far because they cover very wide areas for one extension officer.
In some cases where there is network coverage, a simple phone call can get you all the correct information you need as a farmer. Lastly, as farmers let’s avoid sending illiterate or semi-literate stockmen to administer drugs in our absence because they may pick the wrong bottle and cause a calamity like the one witnessed in Nkayi. It is a very common practice for most livestock farmers to get a school dropout from a disadvantaged family to tend to your livestock and as time goes on we then over delegate some specialised duties to this person and the result can be disastrous. Having said all this, I hope and pray that fellow livestock farmers in their different localities and forms will find it in their hearts to donate some animals to the
Nkayi family and give them a soft landing.