Payment of compensations will be linked to biosecurity on farms- VET Dir.

The Greater Accra Regional Director for the Ghana Veterinary Services, Dr. Joseph Kofi Abuh, has reiterated that the payment of compensations on disease affected farms will be premised on the adherence of biosecurity on the farms.

He adding that government used over GHc44m to pay compensations during the avian influenza outbreak in the country therefore the implementation of the biosecurity on the farms will help reduce the government’s expenditure.

“If you don’t have biosecurity on your farm and there’s an outbreak, you will not receive any compensation when your birds are destroyed” he warned.

Dr. Abuh was speaking in an interview during a network session organized by the Apex body of Women in Poultry Value Chain. The event was aimed at providing a platform for WIPaC- Apex Ghana members to socialize and familiarize themselves with the impending implementation of the biosecurity certification in the country.

He explained that his outfit is partnering with WIPaC- Apex Ghana to champion biosecurity certification in Ghana because of antimicrobial resistance, adding that poultry and other livestock farmers are using a lot of antibiotics that are passed on to human beings through consumption. He further explained that the danger is that these individuals become resistant to antibiotics when they fall sick.

“When they visit the hospital and are given antibiotics, it is not effective on them due to the excessive consumption of microbials from animal protein; the solution is the biosecurity,” he explained.

According to him, when the biosecurity certification is implemented, it will help the farmers to reduce the use of antimicrobials on their farms because when a farmer practices isolation, he is preventing germs from coming into the farms and also preventing the infection of other farms”.

The National President of WIPVaC, Dr. Victoria Norgbey, stressed that the implementation of the biosecurity on the livestock farms will greatly impact the quality of production of livestock for the Ghanaian market.

“The certification will enable the insurance and financial institutions to lower the risk level when farmers are accessing these products and we ourselves will have efficient production and maximize profit as well as adequately meet the protein needs of the country.”

“Now we have a roadmap that we can use for advocacy, engage with the policy makers and duty bearers,” she sounded happy.

Madam Marian Mamle Tetteh-Larnoh a pig farmer and a member of Women in Agribusiness, on her part urged all livestock farmers to have biosecurity on their farms.

Every farmer needs to have biosecurity on the farm to prevent disease as well as protect the farms. If you don’t it will bring a lot of mortalities to the farm,” she warned.

Background

The Livestock Development Policy and Strategy for Ghana was introduced in 2016.  Even so, farms are still being attacked by poultry diseases like Gumboro, Newcastle, and Chronic Respiratory Disease. Due to this, the government spent over GHc17 million to compensate livestock farmers for killing about 554,638 poultry birds due to avian influenza outbreaks.

The Ghana Livestock Development Policy and Strategy has not yet begun due to lack of action plan and funding and the veterinary services and animal improvement bills have not yet been introduced to Parliament.  Also, the Agricultural Extension Agents (AEAs) and livestock farmers in Ghana lack access to biosecurity checklists for their use. With this, a document has been drafted for poultry bio-certification and is awaiting approval.

As a result of the AEA and health officers’ lack of enforcement, many livestock farmers do not adhere to the biosecurity protocol and they get away with it easily. The biosecurity protocol isn’t always followed by livestock farmers because the AEA and health officials don’t enforce it. These farmers escape punishment because of inefficient enforcement agencies, operational difficulties, and a lack of coordination between the agricultural and health departments.

Issues like lax biosecurity enforcement and a lack of bio certification for livestock farms were addressed in the Ghana Livestock Development Policy and Strategy. The policy acknowledges that the Diseases of Animals Act needs to be updated and is out of date.

To increase productivity through regulation, the Ministry of Agriculture has committed to ensuring that veterinary medications are of the proper quality and quantity and are administered in accordance with producer recommendations. By 2021, it also promised to reach all clusters of livestock production, including smallholder farmers in underdeveloped areas, but this has not been done yet.

An alternative policy raised by the stakeholders was that, regulations for routine livestock movement are to be implemented in order to stop the spread of agents that might cause disease since routine livestock movement permits are not mentioned in the Ghana Livestock Development Policy and Strategy 2016.