SEMBABULE: As Uganda seeks to raise production volumes and add value to milk, farmers have been reminded that Veterinarians and other animal health care workers are key to them achieving their targets.
At the National Milk Day celebrations hosted by Sembabule district on June 23, State Minister for Agriculture Fred Bwiino urged farmers to endeavour to add value to agriculture products. He said that value addition can make the country’s economy grow 10 times from the current $55 billion dollars earned from the sector.
The top executives of the Uganda Veterinary Association attended the Sembabule celebrations, and in a statement, UVA president Dr Daniel Kasibule stressed the importance of veteranians in ensuring that animal produce is safe for human consumption, animal productivity increases, advisory services reach all corners of the country and disease surveillance is stepped up.
He said veterinary doctors play a key role to ensure sustainable development of the dairy sector, plus health and well-being of the population since milk and associated products are great protein sources.
“The country is blessed to have qualified veterinarians and other paraprofessionals who are the custodians of animal health, productivity and welfare. However, because of not maximizing them by some farmers, various issues have emerged,” Kasibule’s statement said.
“Tick resistance, antimicrobial resistance and other diseases are emerging and re-emerging. All these greatly affect the entire livestock sector and increase costs of production, reduce animal productivity and reduce quality of our livestock and livestock products, hence loss of revenue.”
Kasibule said these challenges are highly attributed to the many irrational practices, as some farmers treat animals by themselves. He revealed that there is understaffing of veterinary personnel, hence an extremely low veterinarian to farmer ratio, limited field facilitation to animal health workers, among others.
The acting Director of Animal Resources Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Industry and Fisheries, Dr.Anna Rose Ademun, the Uganda Veterinary Association President Dr.Kasibule, UVA Vice-president Dr.Nabadda Sitenda Madrine and Dr.Kateregga Julius Executive Member of Vet wealth Sacco were among dignitaries in Sembabule for the June Dairy Month annual celebration organised by the Dairy Development Authority in partnership with MAAIF under the Theme “Sustainable Dairy,Good for the Planet, Good for you.”
“It is from such a background that I take this day to call upon every stakeholder present here to always coordinate with your qualified veterinarians and other qualified animal health workers to ensure that we move theDairy sector from subsistence to commercial and tap into the maximum Uganda’s animal production potential that remains locked and ensure quality and safe milk for the entire nation and regional markets,” said Kasibule.
