National cattle identification exercise to begin

Accra, July 18, GNA - The Ministry of Food and Agriculture is resolved to ensure that both internal transhumance and across the border transhumance are practised within the confines of the law and that farmers go about their farming activities without any fear or hindrance. To this end the Ministry is soon to embark on a national exercise to identify all Ghanaian cattle down to the district level. Major Courage Quashigah (rtd), Sector Minister, said this on Friday, adding, "it was with an understanding with our neighbouring countries that if during the exercise the alien herdsmen in Ghana refuse to allow their cattle to be branded as Ghanaian cattle then there would be no alternative than to flush them out".

The Minister said this when Mr Yaw Effah-Baafi, NDC- Kintampo, asked what measures the Ministry was putting in place to control the influx into the country of alien Fulani and their cattle to enable farmers in the Kintampo and other constituencies go about their farming activities in peace.

Maj. Quashigah said in 2002 a meeting of ECOWAS Ministers in charge of livestock was held in Burkina Faso to specifically discuss the question of transhumance in the Sub-Region and as a result a Cabinet Committee on governance recently directed the Ministry to make an input. He said the Committee's recommendations included the rehabilitation of quarantine stations by MOFA to serve as the only entry and exit points for animals in and out of Ghana. Lands were to be demarcated as for either cropping or grazing; mandatory kraaling of animals from sundown till sunrise; prohibition of animal movement during the night, and collecting a permit, which should issued strictly on the veterinary officers, before herds are moved across district borders under.

Maj. Quashigah said the recommendations also included entry and exit of cross-border transhumance herd in or out of the country should be restricted to the period between December and March, confiscation of illegal weapons in the possession of alien and indigenous herdsmen and registration of all resident herdsmen alien and indigenous and recording of their stock in collaboration with traditional authorities. The Minister said among the disastrous effects of the illegal influx of these alien cattle into Ghana were the reported cases of conflicts between crop farmers and the alien herdsmen leading to destruction of crops. He said attempts to resolve such conflicts had often failed because traditional authorities and other influential persons had tended to side with the alien herdsmen because they had been influenced with cattle given them by the alien herdsmen.

The Minister said in the past, livestock from the Sahelian countries moved into the country mainly as trade cattle that were meant for slaughter and admitted into Ghana through the main quarantine stations at Mognori, Paga and Pusiga all in the Upper East Region. Maj. Quashigah said they were then subjected to thorough veterinary examination and vaccination before being allowed into Ghana and given movement permits. However, with the desertification of countries to the north of Ghana and the subsequent severity of draught conditions there in the 1980's, there was an influx of large numbers of breeding herds of cattle with their owners through unapproved entry points into the country. He said these herdsmen with their livestock could now be found in several parts of the country especially, the Brong Ahafo, Northern, Upper East, Upper West, Eastern, Volta and Ashanti Regions.