By Thane Musariri
Mashonaland West Opposition MP Mutsa Murombedzi’s question to the Minister of Lands, Agriculture, Fisheries, Water, and Rural Development in parliament focused on the measures taken by the government to address the issue of diseases affecting cattle, particularly regarding the unavailability of dipping places. nationwide.
Her inquiry a reflects a genuine concern for the welfare of livestock and the livelihoods of rural households, recognizing the importance of effective disease control measures in safeguarding the agricultural sector and wealth protection for rural households. Reviving and sustaining dip tanks and other dipping methods helps to stop the spread of diseases.
Minister Masuka’s response tried to outline the government’s efforts to mitigate the impact of diseases on cattle through the revival of dip tanks and the implementation of boreholes.
He provided statistics indicating a significant decrease in the number of cattle affected by skin diseases, attributing this decline to the distribution of tick grease and the revival of dip tanks. Additionally, the minister highlighted ongoing initiatives to further expand the number of functional dip tanks across the country.
While Minister Masuka provided an overview of the government’s interventions, the response lacked specific information regarding the geographical distribution of revived dip tanks and the timeline for completing the remaining revitalization efforts.
Additionally, there was limited mention of complementary measures aimed at enhancing disease surveillance, veterinary services, and public awareness campaigns to ensure sustained progress in disease control.
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A more comprehensive response would have addressed these aspects, providing stakeholders especially Zimbabwe’s rural population most of which now have empty kraals due to cattle disease outbreaks that has been engulfing the country.
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Read the MPs’s Question and the Minister’s response:
HON. MUROMBEDZI:
Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir. My supplementary to the Minister is, why there has been bans for movement of cattle is because of the diseases. What measures did the Government put in place to ensure that we have dipping places so that the diseases would not affect the cattle countrywide?
HON. DR. MASUKA:
The issue of dip tanks- since 2016 up to 2022, we lost 500 000 cattle because of diseases. In 2020, in the agricultural transformation strategy, we started to come up with two programmes. The first was to revive the issue of dip tanks. We have more than 4 000 dip tanks. Then, we came up with boreholes and we desilted those so that every household where there are cattle, we give tick grease for them to apply on the ears, backs and tails of the cattle. It lessened the cattle affected with skin diseases. We had 49% decrease and the following year, it was 23% downward effects on the number of cattle affected. We have now revived 3 000 dip tanks out of 4 000. We believe that this year we can be able to revive 500 more dip tanks.
