Manama welcomes Animal Health Centre

GWANDA SOUTH communities have welcomed the Animal Health Management
centre which seeks to reduce livestock mortality and support the growth of the
national herd.
Farmers expressed their happiness during the official launch and handover of
Manama Anchor Animal Health Management Centre on Wednesday when the
Deputy Minister of Lands, Agriculture, Fisheries, Water and Rural Development,
Davies Marapira, officiated at the colourful event.
The centre is situated in the heart of Gwanda South District, where cattle breeding is
the order if the day. It will serve the rural communities in treating their livestock in an
effort to improve livelihoods.
The centre will ensure that livestock medication and vaccines are readily available
while disseminating information to farmers that will enable them to keep their animals
safe.
The European Union, in collaboration with the Food Agriculture Organisation, played
a pivotal role in making the Manama Centre a successes as they pooled their
resources together.
In his Keynote address, Deputy Minister Marapira reminded Gwanda South farmers
that they used to provide the best beef in the world.
“The opening of this Animal Health Centre must take you back to your olden days,
when you used to supply the European Union with quality beef.
“I urge you to use the knowledge wisely so that you can improve the quality of your
animals and at the same time boost the national herd.
“Matabeleland South was once known as a hub for cattle breeding and had the
largest herd in the country, now you are second to Masvingo.
“The country has over 5.4 million beef herd. Other countries in the region are talking
about 15 to 17 million cattle. We have 4.8 million goats and a few sheep. If we add
these we get about US$2 billion,” said Marapira.
He added that an economy like this must boast of between US$20billion to US$30
billion livestock economy.
“We are glad to see that the SAFE project has been contributing to enhancing animal
production and productivity through interventions such as support to formulation of
strategies for livestock capacitation and ISO accreditation of Government and
training of extension staff on SOPs, among other things,” he said.

Giving their testimonials, community members said the opening of the centre would
go a long way in cutting down costs for them as they will no longer meet any travel
costs to Gwanda town or Bulawayo.
Farmer Kaleni Mabeta said they have lost a lot of livestock to various diseases due
to lack of knowledge.
“Now that the Government has opened an animal hospital for us here at Manama,
cattle deaths will be a thing of the past as we will be getting everything under one
roof.
We will no longer be travelling to Gwanda or Bulawayo for the vaccines as they are
now available at our door steps,” said Mabeta.