Animal Health Boosted
In addition to breed improvement, livestock health has improved. Under Livestock Production and Health, the project financed region-wide and internal district harmonized vaccination campaigns for priority diseases such as PPR, FMD and CBPP. The vaccination campaigns by the project led to the vaccination of 345,614 cattle and 266,279 goats in the 12 project districts between January and September 2018. This is one of the contributing factors to reduced death rate and increased birth rate of livestock in the project area.
“The percentage death rate decline from 5% to 2% is attributed to project interventions in the livestock health services and systems,”Dr. Joseph Eladu the District Veterinary Officer of Kaabong District says. This has led to an increase in the volume of cattle traded in the select markets in the project area.
Farmers in the project areas have also benefitted from the market information dissemination and capacity building of the district commercial officers that has led to an increase in the volumes of livestock traded in the project area.
As opposed to the past when most farmers were grappling with poor water and market infrastructure, RPLRP has set up improved structures such as water facilities, cattle markets, abattoirs and border check points in all the twelve districts of operations. This has bolstered livestock trade in the area.