Business
Council Seeks Implementation Of Livestock Health Policy
The Veterinary Council
of Nigeria (VCN) last Thursday urged the Federal Government to ensure practical implementation of the livestock health policy.
The registrar of the council, Dr. Markus Avong who made the call at a media forum in Abuja, said that the implementation of animal health policy would help the country meet the international standard on trade in animal and animal products as well as ensure the control of animal diseases.
He said “if we must export our animals and animal products, we have to meet the sanitary measures of the World Trade Organisation. The sanitary measures have basically to do with hygiene – health of the animal.
So, if we have to be a partaker at the international market level in trade or animal and animal products, then we must develop an animal health policy where specific diseases are targeted, with the sole aim of controlling and eradicating them”.
“Let’s take it for granted there is a policy on the ground since 2004. What is the policy doing? What animal diseases are we targeting to eradicate and how far have we gone about it? Have we done it? “, Avong asked.
The registrar attributed the country’s inability to designate a national day for animal vaccination to the irregularity of a national policy on the vaccination of animals.
He called on the Federal Government especially, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development to embrace its responsibility and ensure the implementation of the policy, adding that it would help curb other animal diseases.
Avong said “it is a policy that has to emanate from the Federal Ministry of Agriculture, and there is no policy on the vaccination of any animal.