Wezi Tjaronda
13 July 2009
Windhoek — The Ministry of Agriculture, Water and Forestry plans to establish a meat processing plant to cook and can meat from the northern communal areas (NCA).
This, according to deputy minister Isak Katali, will be to mitigate the effects of foot-and-mouth (FMD) outbreaks.
He told parliamentarians last week that the plant would form part of the long-term plans that the ministry wants to put in place to ensure the effective control of FMD. The ministry is looking for markets for the products from the plant locally, regionally within the SADC region and beyond, he said.
The other plans include the construction of an additional quarantine facility east of Katima Mulilo and erection of a fence to separate wildlife and cattle. Katali said the quarantine facility in Katima Mulilo would be used to keep infected animals in the event of a new outbreak.
"The facility will be used as an ordinary quarantine facility between outbreaks," said Katali, adding that this would, however, only materialise if the community avails land for the project.
Katali said the contact between cattle and wildlife, particularly buffaloes will continue to constitute risks for FMD outbreaks, which gave rise to the ministries of Agriculture, Water and Forestry and Environment and Tourism to implement a Cabinet decision to erect a fence on the eastern side of the Kavango River. The fence will run from Mahango Game Reserve in the south to the border with Angola in the north.
The fence will form the future western physical boundary of the infected zone.
Plans are also underway to upgrade the fence surrounding the Mahango Game Reserve to a game proof electric fence.
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