August 13, 2010

 

 

Although southern African countries have made progress in livestock production over the past decade, they remain a net importer of meat, milk and eggs.

 

Meat production, which includes pork, mutton, lamb and beef, went up by about 30% from 4.68 million tonnes in 2004 to 5.16 million tonnes in 2009.

 

During the same period, egg production increased by 14% from 4.5 million tonnes to 5.55 million tonnes, while milk production has almost remained constant at 0.57 million tonnes.

 

Margaret Nyirenda, Southern African Development Community (SADC) Director for Food, Agriculture and Natural Resource, said egg production is not a very complicated business and people in the region could venture into the area to secure production in the region.

 

She noted that failure in livestock production is mostly attributed to trans-boundary animal diseases, especially foot-and-mouth disease (FMD), as well as chicken sicknesses such as Newcastle disease.

 

"If one country cleans its border, the neighbour should do the same, so that as a region, we are able to export these products, because if we have these diseases we have these international trade bans," she added.

 

According to Nyirenda, the US$21-million regional programme on the control of trans-boundary animal diseases (TAD) was developed to address the challenge.

 

The objective is to enhance livestock as tradable and safe commodities through improved capacity for detection, identification, monitoring and surveillance of TADs in the region.

 

Fish production in the region continues to grow due to improved management and expansion of aquaculture. The current estimate of regional fish production stands at 2.5 million tonnes.

 

"However, limited investment, lack of infrastructure for fish handling and preservation, and illegal, unregulated and unreported fishing remain major challenges," she said.

 

Fish is important in some countries especially at household level, as it is one of the major sources of protein, while in countries such as Namibia, Seychelles, Tanzania and Mozambique it is a major contributor to GDP.