An Animal health
Consultant, Mr Noble Igbokwe, has urged government at all levels to enforce the compensation laws for abattoirs.
Igbokwe told newsmen in Lagos that the implementation of the policy on compensation would encourage butchers to ensure that only healthy animals were slaughtered for meat production.
Igbokwe, also the National Marketing Manager of Diversay Solutions Ltd, said the government was supposed to pay 50 per cent of the cost of an animal considered unwholesome.
He said there was a wide gap between regulations and implementing vaccination protocols as abattoirs were not fully staffed with technical experts.
“Government at all levels cannot continue to tell the people not to slaughter animals if they are not implementing the compensation policy.
“The compensation by-law says if government is going to condemn your animal or your cattle for instance, you get 50 per cent of the value of that animal.
“Otherwise, the butchers will not be willing to release their unhealthy animals to be condemned.
“These butchers essentially raise small scale loans like N2 million to buy about 10 cattle and they sell, and now you are trying to condemn those animals,’’ Igbokwe said.
He said that animal superintendents, who should ensure that only healthy animals are allowed into the abattoir, were still a challenge because of lack of efficient security for them.
According to Igbokwe, vaccinating animals is more economical in the sense that it is meant to reduce losses.
“What you are trying to prevent when you vaccinate animals is to reduce chances of losses due to specific viral infections for the farmer.
“However, for diseases that have human implications like bird flu, we do not recommend vaccinations because it has public health significance.
“However, why it is important for farmers to vaccinate is that if a farmer fails to vaccinate his animals for any reason, a diseases like (calicivirus, picorna and reovirus) creep into a farm.
“The chances are that the farmer may want to reduce losses, by deciding to sell or slaughter them,’’ he said.
Igbokwe said the farmers would prefer to sell the animals off so that he would not incur much loss and in that aspect, it is very critical to vaccinate.