Technical and financial support

Livestock for restocking should, if possible, be bought locally or in neighbouring areas. These animals are adapted to local conditions, the risk of transmitting disease is minimized and they are usually those that farmers know best. However, some may feel that restocking may provide a chance for upgrading and improvements. One common example is replacing the local, low-production stock with imported breeds with a greater genetic potential in order to “improve” the national herd. Long experience has shown that this must be accompanied by a sustainable improvement in nutrition and husbandry facilities as well as an adequate regime of disease prevention if it is to be successful at both the national level and for individual producers. In many cases, it has ended in a failure to achieve a desired objective. Great care should be exercised in using restocking after an outbreak as a “development” tool, including to improve the genetic composition of the restocked population.

The purchase of large numbers of livestock to replace whole herds may bring diseases that are unfamiliar or even unknown in an area. This is particularly true for diseases with few prominent clinical signs and/or long incubation periods such as bovine tuberculosis, small ruminant and bovine brucellosis, infectious bovine rhinotracheitis (IBR), paratuberculosis (Johne’s disease), porcine respiratory and reproductive syndrome (PRRS), porcine circovirus type 2 (PCV2) and bovine viral diarrhoea (BVD), all of which cannot be readily recognized without specific tests which may not always be readily available. It is difficult to be sure that livestock are disease-free, but the risks and consequences of introducing disease can be minimized with careful planning. It is important that livestock-keepers be advised of the issue of disease introduction and, where necessary, controls imposed to limit the risk posed by this large-scale movement of animals.

Buying livestock from several sources will inevitably mean that animals will be of different health and immune statuses, and mixing them under stress can lead to cross-infection.

Restocking, therefore, presents many issues and challenges that need to be discussed with stakeholders, particularly livestock holders and potential traders (sources). Nonetheless, in the absence of restocking, other alternatives would have to be found to sustain the livelihoods of people who have to find some means of surviving in the aftermath of the disease epidemics – similarly to other natural disasters.

technIcal and fInancIal suPPort

Rehabilitation of farms and farmers affected by a major animal disease catastrophe deserves to be seen as the same as rehabilitation of populations hit by other catastrophes. The damages are not readily obvious to outsiders, but they can be devastating. For instance, although FMD is rarely fatal in adult animals, the after-effects are serious. Affected animals lose body condition and secondary bacterial infections may prolong convalescence. The most serious effects of the disease are seen in dairy cattle, and reduced milk yields are almost inevitable. Chronic mastitis may develop and the value of a cow is permanently reduced.

Culling remains the basic control policy because widespread disease throughout the country would pose a serious economic threat, but this is not always feasible, particularly in developing countries. The owners are left with a burden where the animal has to be fed rather than being a producing animal with a profitable performance (e.g. weight gain, milk yield, offspring, transportation or tilling of land for crops). Helping farmers by slaughtering and compensating for such animals will be a well-deserved investment.