Coordinated multi-donor programme for integrated tick and tick-borne disease (TBD) control
New world screwworm reported in Cuba
Organizations unite to combat trypanosomiasis
International symposium on the supply of livestock products to rapidly expanding urban populations
Mataderos modulares en América Latina
Taller en Montevideo sobre aprovechamiento de subproductos e impacto ambiental en América Latina
Dairy information centres and networks
World food summit: renewing global commitment to fight hunger
Animal Production and Health Division - Division de la production et de la santé animales - Dirección de Producción y Sanidad Animal
The Coordinated Multi-Donor Programme for Integrated Tick and Tick-borne Disease (TBD) Control in eastern, central and southern Africa implemented by FAO with trust fund contributions from Belgium, Denmark and the Netherlands is reaching important milestones in its unfolding. A new programme coordinator was appointed in October 1995 with the mandate of consolidating the programme into a sustainable undertaking. To this effect, negotiations are under way with the Onderstepoort Veterinary Institute of South Africa for the production and supply of East Coast fever (ECF) and other TBD vaccines as well as the provision of diagnostic services to the programme member countries. Further, a new set of standards for the production of TBD vaccines is being finalized, collaboration with the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) is being strengthened and the preliminary interest expressed by the industry in delivering the integrated tick and TBD control approach to African farmers is being discussed further.
Programme activities in Uganda, the United Republic of Tanzania and Zimbabwe are progressing, with the delivery of integrated tick and TBD control gradually taking hold as a result of the involvement of an increasing number of private veterinarians. Unfortunately, the present situations in Burundi and Rwanda have not been favourable for the programme to be active there. Other countries, however, such as Malawi, Mozambique and Swaziland, have expressed a willingness to initiate their own schemes under the umbrella of the FAO programme.
Of special note is the ongoing development of an ECF immunization method in Zimbabwe that does not require the simultaneous use of long-acting tetracycline. If the current research shows that this particular parasite protects against a wide range of lethal challenges, it may have extraordinary potential for ECF immunization with much reduced labour and cost.
The presence of the New World screwworm (NWS) in Cuba was officially confirmed by the government in October 1995. This notification resulted from an upsurge in the number of cases of myiasis reported since March 1995, when the disease was first detected. So far, some 385 cases have been diagnosed in livestock, distributed throughout all provinces in the country, with the exception of the more isolated Juventud Island.
This confirms that five Caribbean countries are now infested with NWS, namely Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago. In response to this latest development, FAO has despatched a technical expert to Cuba to investigate the situation and to review the reinvasion danger presented to the NWS-eradicated areas of mainland United States and Mexico.
The need to eradicate trypanosomiasis as a follow-up to the Onchocerciasis Control Programme (OCP) in West Africa. the successful river blindness control and eradication effort. has long been recognized. Nevertheless. the magnitude of scale - some one million square kilometres are affected the involvement of 14 countries and the large funding required, have always deterred a bold and determined approach to the problem.
A solution may now be within reach, however. Under an FAO initiative, a technical meeting was convened in Banjul, the Gambia, in September 1995, which brought together experts from France, Belgium and the African nations affected, as well as the Centre internationale pour recherche-développement en zone sub humide (CIRDES) and FAO. The result of this meeting was the identification of a regional plan of action that would not only clarify the tsetse/trypanosomiasis problem but also establish techniques for cost-effective control as well as ensure the coordination required to direct both the inputs of the various participants and the actions necessary to conduct a control programme with the ultimate goal of food security and sustainable development.
This approach will be based on the experiences gained by the Belgium-funded project that was so successfully implemented in Togo under FAO guidance [World Animal Review, 83(2): 6870], where disease intervention strategies have been identified based on the clarification of the problem in the context of rural development and farming systems.
Donor interest in this multidisciplinary programme approach is very positive and a mission will soon be fielded to draw up the definitive project proposal based 011 the deliberations at the Banjul meeting.
At the end of this century, some 800 million people - of whom 192 million are expected to be children under the age of five - will be living in abject poverty and suffering from hunger and malnutrition throughout the world. The contribution of livestock to total food production in developing countries is growing at a faster rate than those of cereals and other items, yet the potential contribution of meat and dairy products could be even greater if appropriate processing and marketing infrastructures were created to link primary producers with the rapidly expanding market for livestock food products.
The symposium was a joint undertaking of FAO, the Organizing Committee of the Eighth World Conference 011 Animal Production and the Korean Society of Animal Science It was held at the Hoam Faculty Club of Seoul National University, Seoul, the Republic of Korea, from 16 to 20 May 1995, and attended by 52 participants from Africa, Asia, Europe and Latin America including representatives from international and national development agencies
The symposium unanimously recommended that:
· livestock products should be promoted as important foods in their own right as well as catalysts to efficient dietary use of other foods by all sections and ages of the human community;· livestock products from all sources and all animal species must be promoted;
· linkages in the chain from the producer through post-production to the consumer must be streamlined and made more efficient in order to increase producer prices and decrease those of consumers;
· market services, including those of the informal sector, are essential and should be governed by market forces although governments may provide initial and limited support and must always provide an enabling environment;
· privatization should be promoted where appropriate (such as reproduction and clinical services), but some public-good services, including epizootic disease, zoonoses, quarantine and quality control, may need to be strengthened;
· the private sector should receive maximum support and be subject only to minimum and necessary controls;
· international centres and development agencies are important for development but must fulfil their roles in close collaboration with national organizations and farmers' groups;
· research and development must be closely linked to extension services and to producers' real needs;
· pert-urban and urban production systems, although probably not sustainable in the long term, should be supported in the short to medium term to provide essential livestock products to urban populations, but such support should ensure that these systems do not contribute to irreversible environmental changes, for which indicators are needed and may have to be developed.
· development of suitable marketing infrastructure is essential to facilitate the relocation of production systems to rural areas with a concomitant reduction in environmental impact and an increase in rural employment.
The full proceedings are available from the Meat and Dairy Service, Animal Production and Health Division. FAO, Rome, Italy.
Dentro del Programa para el establecimiento de mataderos modulares de la FAO, tres nuevas instalaciones de este tipo fueron inauguradas oficialmente en 1995 en Honduras, Nicaragua y República Dominicana. En cada uno de estos mataderos se organizaron, previamente, cursos de capacitación para sus operarios en técnicas de sacrificio y aprovechamiento de subproductos. En Honduras y Nicaragua, los costos de capacitación y de equipamiento de los mataderos fueron costeados por la FAO a través de su Programa de Cooperación Técnica, mientras que la construcción se realizó con fondos donados bilateralmente por la Agencia Española de Cooperación Internacional, a los correspondientes gobiernos. En el caso de la República Dominicana. en cambio, el proyecto para el establecimiento de un matadero modular fue financiado con fondos de fideicomiso donados por el Gobierno de España. Debido al éxito alcanzado con este programa en un total de seis países latinoamericanos, varios proyectos similares están en cárter a para construir mataderos en aquella región
Durante la primera mitad de 1996 se celebró con el patrocinio de la FAO un taller en Montevideo sobre Aprovechamiento de subproductos e impacto ambiental en América Latina. Representantes de once países latinoamericanos se encargaron de exponer la situación de los mataderos en sus países en relación con la utilización de los subproductos de la matanza y el tratamiento de las aparas residuales. Dos expertos en el tema expusieron las diferentes técnicas recomendables en cada caso, y la Unión Europea participó con un experto que expuso cuál es la reglamentación al respecto en los países comunitarios. En América Latina muchos subproductos de la matanza son vertidos. junto a las aparas sucias, en ríos y arroyos cercanos a los mataderos. Ello ocasiona un perjuicio ecológico grave, así como importantes pérdidas económicas ya que dejan de aprovecharse una serie de subproductos que tienen un valor en el mercado. Se han observado además casos en que una mala utilización de los subproductos ha producido alimentos para los animales en malas condiciones sanitarias afectando finalmente a aquellas personas que injirieron productos procedentes de algunos de estos animales. Por otra parte, la contaminación ambiental puede llegar a ser una barrera no arancelaria que limite la Importación de carne y de productos cárnicos procedentes de aquellos países en los que los mataderos no respetan las condiciones ambientales.
For some years now, FAO has recognized the vital importance of dairy information flow and networks for dairy development. Consequently, consultancy reports were commissioned for the purpose of creating guidelines for the establishment of an information service to support meat and dairy development in developing countries. The reports provided proposals for the establishment of a dairy information network for Africa and Asia.
Making full use of the FAO-AGRIS database management system, the network would consist of national/regional dairy information centres providing information input through the AGRIS systems at three levels of sophistication depending on the available expertise, staff and computer hardware and software. FAO's Meat and Dairy Service (AGAM) would act as the coordinating centre, distributing information at regular intervals among the national dairy information centres. AGAM would also coordinate and maintain a small dairy documents library, publish and distribute dairy development newsletters and organize meeting and workshops among participants in the network.
In December 1995, AGAM sponsored a workshop on a regional exchange network for market-oriented dairy development in Harare, Zimbabwe, with participants from most eastern and southern Africa countries. The objective of the workshop was to prepare a plan of action for the establishment of a dairy development network in eastern and southern Africa. The proceedings of this workshop, together with the adopted plan of action, will be ready mid-1996.
Furthermore. a proposal has been approved in principle for the establishment of a network in Latin America under FAO's Technical Cooperation Programme (TCP) in collaboration with the Federación Panamericana de Lechería (FEPALE).
World leaders will assemble at FAO Headquarters in Rome, Italy, from 13 to 17 November 1996, making a public commitment to action to eliminate hunger. The World Food Summit will provide an historic opportunity for governments, international organizations and all sectors of civil society to join forces in a concerted campaign to ensure food security - access at all times to the food required for a healthy, active life- for all the world's people.
FAO has called the World Food Summit to address both the present crisis and the challenge of the future.
As preparations for the summit proceed, world grain stocks have dwindled to dangerously low levels, pushing export prices up by 30 to 50 percent ... and serving as a reminder of the fragility of food supplies ill a world that must produce more each year to feed a rapidly increasing population.
Over the past 50 years, agricultural production has managed to keep pace with, and even outstrip, population growth. Yet an estimated 800 million people are still chronically undernourished and 200 million children under the age of five suffer from protein and energy deficiencies.
Achieving food security for today's hungry, who constitute 20 percent of the population of developing countries, requires policies that make it possible for them to grow, or buy, the food they need.
By the year 2030, the planet will have to nourish three billion additional people. Simply maintaining current levels of food availability will require rapid and sustainable production gains to increase supplies by more than 75 percent without destroying the natural resources on which we all depend.
