Workshop on Regional Agricultural policy, Livestock sector

• Presentation

In response to this call to participate in the development processes of the RAPF, the SADC FANR Livestock Unit, through the PRINT Livestock Project, organised a workshop held in November 2008 for the specific purposes of:

• Sensitising the livestock sector of member states to the processes under way towards the development of the SADC RAPF; and

• To consider and recommend policy issues that are of significance at the regional level, from the livestock perspective, that will help contribute to improved livestock production, marketing and trade and therefore that should be given due consideration in the development of the RAPF.

In implementing its activities, the PRINT Livestock Project has worked closely with the four sub-committees of the SADC Livestock Technical Committee (LTC). The four Sub Committees are:

• Animal Production, Veld & Marketing ;
• Epidemiology & Informatics
• Veterinary Laboratories & Diagnostics; and
• Veterinary Public Health & Food Safety.

The PRINT Livestock Project and the Sub Committees report to the LTC comprising Directors of Veterinary and Livestock Services of Member States on issues affecting livestock in the SADC region. Thus, the workshop was organised as a combined Sub-Committees’ Workshop for the specific task, as mentioned earlier, of addressing livestock policy issues in contribution to the formulation processes of the SADC Regional Agricultural Policy Framework currently underway.

• Report

With the above definitions in mind, it is clear that the RAPF is an attempt at moving towards the complete harmonisation of national policies with the view to providing opportunities to Member States to capitalise on the trade benefits of improved resource allocation and greater competition and to permit a wider range of projects to be implemented under the RISDP. To help guide the contributions by the livestock sector into the processes of the development of the RAPF, the following workshop objectives were outlined.

• Definition of the main objectives and targets of the RAPF with respect to the livestock sector (what is it that the livestock sector would want to see in the RAPF as direct objectives addressing the sector?);

• Identification of regional agricultural / livestock policy gaps or issues;

• Identification of potential mechanisms that could be used in RAPF for purposes of achieving, with respect to livestock:

– Increased and improved productivity;

– Increased regional value adding;

– Increased intra- and inter-regional trade;

– Resource allocation allowing for comparative advantage oriented production;

– Elimination of trans-boundary pests and diseases;

– Increased and improved livestock information management and dissemination systems;

– Increased and improved livestock infrastructure, rangelands and public services;

• Identification of mechanisms for optimizing sub-sectoral crop / livestock linkages within the framework of the RAPF;

– Grain production is key for animal production bringing forward the challenge of competing demands for human consumption as opposed to animal feeds from grains and now Biofuels.

– Efforts directed towards improved animal feeds and livestock feeding systems.

– Public / private partnerships synergies for livestock development

• Application of best practices / technologies, research and development requirements at the regional level;

• Identification of further areas of harmonisation including systems for the patenting of technologies developed to protect intellectual property rights and ensure that the technology is affordable to resource poor farmers; and

• Identification of cross cutting issues (e.g. HIV/AIDS, environment, climate change, etc) that are key issues to the livestock sector.

Before the participants could fully engage themselves in addressing these issues, it was necessary that the private sector participants outline their perspectives and perceptions of key issues affecting the livestock sector. A number of presenters made presentations from the view point of the private sector. These are detailed in the main report.

The report (in pdf format) is available here:FINAL_PRINT_Workshop_Report_10_Nov_08Rev1.pdf

FINAL PRINT RAP Workshop Report Nov 2008

The general principles of the RAPF can be read here:

Report RAPF WorkingGroups

• Technical terms

Definitions

In a bid to provide clarity for workshop participants on some of the terms generally used in policy development, the Facilitator provided the following simplified definitions on four commonly used terms, policy, convergence, harmonisation and common agricultural policy.

• Policy: Policy, in very simplified layman terms, is a statement that describes three fundamental factors in relation to a specific environment or matter:

1. A description of the status quo (As-Is situation)
2. An outline of the desired state (To-Be); and
3. An outline of how to get from the As-Is to the To-Be state.

The difference between the As-Is situation and the To-Be position are the gaps that policy desires to close. The To-be is the main objective of the policy and strategies, plans, budgets, monitoring and evaluation are the tools to be employed in moving from the As-Is situation to the To-Be desired state. All this encapsulates what the word policy means or stands for.

• Convergence of national policies: Convergence describes an ongoing process in which national policies within a Regional Economic Community (REC) are progressively adjusted and move towards harmonisation. The aim is to arrive at a common regional target of common policies across the region. This target is however not legally binding, it is a “gentlemen’s agreement” of a common target.

• Harmonization of national policies: Harmonisation is when all countries in the REC subscribe to minimum policy threshold levels but national differences still remain. At the level of harmonisation, there is commitment by Member States to attain the common regional target within a prescribed time frame.

• Common Policy : This is when policy and associated regulatory rules are fully subscribed to and legally applied by all Member States. This implies acceptance by all Member States to move from simply an agreement of what the common regional target is to legally binding themselves to that regional target. At that stage, the regional policies are binding and over-rule national policies. There are penalties associated with not adhering to the prescribed common policy and there are benefits associated with adhering to them.

• Recommendations

The Outcomes of Thematic Group Discussions

Deriving from the four sub-committees of the Livestock Technical Committee, four themes were developed to assist focus discussions on issues of policy contribution towards the Regional Agricultural Policy Framework. These themes were:

• Thematic Group on Animal Production: Policy Issues on Beef, Dairy, Small-stock and Poultry Sectors;

• Thematic Group on Animal Health: Policy Issues on the Control of Transboundary Animal Diseases;

• Thematic Group on Livestock Marketing & Trade: Policy Issues on Value Chains and Zoning for Exports; and

• Thematic Group on Infrastructure, Rangelands and Public Services: Policy Issues on Livestock Infrastructure, Use of Rangelands, Delivery of Livestock Services

The major outputs for this workshop were designed to originate from group discussions. The following sections outline the summaries of these group discussions and therefore their recommendations towards policy formulation of the RAPF.

Animal Production

The group on animal production outlined the following as being the major objective in animal production: "Regional self sufficiency in animal and animal products through increased national production and the promotion of intra-regional trade in livestock, livestock products and inputs. "

The group identified what they considered key issues and challenges. These include:

• The provision of accurate statistical information;
• The preservation of Breeds and species (genetics);
• The preservation of Farm Animal Genetic Resources;
• The provision of adequate grazing and supply of feed;
• Infrastructure;
• Finance;
• Political will;
• Religion;
• HIV/AIDS
• Gender
• Legislation
• Livestock Emergency Guidelines and Standards (LEGS
• Research and development.

Animal Health

The group identified the following key policy issues / mechanisms, which when fully addressed, would see the SADC region attain the above objective:

1. Harmonised national veterinary service systems in the Member States in line with relevant International Standards, Guidelines and Norms;
2. Harmonised sanitary regulations in Member States including harmonised implementation of Sanitary regulations under the SPS annex;
3. Agreed long-term strategies for the progressive control of a limited number of TADs and Zoonoses;
4. Development of strategies for the containment and local control of TADs, animal pests, animal vector borne diseases and zoonoses;
5. Development of strategies for the effective prevention and preparedness against the risk of incursion of TADs and zoonoses that are foreign to SADC, such as H5N1 highly pathogenic avian influenza;
6. Development and promotion of Animal Health Intervention Systems which are relevant within Socio-economic Systems of the region and that recognize social strata and ownership of livestock;
7. Harmonised national and regional early warning and response systems for TADs and zoonoses;
8. Improved epidemiological surveillance that also captures disease events in the wildlife animal population including especially wildlife-human-livestock interface;
9. Involvement of veterinary skills and expertise in the creation of Transfrontier Conservation Areas (TFCA);
10. Improved epidemiological surveillance that also captures disease events in the aquatic and apiary populations;
11. Improved grassroots or community based disease surveillance and response systems that target containment of outbreaks at source and thereby improve sustained animal agriculture and livestock dependent livelihoods at the grassroots level;
12. Development of programmes for sustained surveillance for endemic diseases and provision of guidelines for their control;
13. Involvement of the private sector in disease control programmes and the sanitary mandate for the implementation of such public good activities as vaccinations, inspections etc as well as in the production and commercialisation of animal health inputs including vaccines and medicines;
14. Regulation of veterinary medicines and drugs;
15. Effective collaboration with the human health sector for the effective prevention and control of diseases with the potential for spread to humans;
16. Promoting enabling training and research;
17. Promotion of emerging virtual centres or networks for enhancing the regional capacity for the detection, identification, monitoring and surveillance of infectious diseases (TADs and Zoonoses), sharing of resources and expertise and technology transfer;
18. Collaboration with programmes of the AU, FAO, OIE and WHO for the effective prevention and control of TADs, Food-borne risks and Zoonoses;
19. Ensuring the adoption of Animal Welfare Standards;
20. Defining commonly agreed methods for Animal and by-products Identification and Traceability;
21. Promoting and overseeing implementation of Food Safety Standards; and
22. Developing an instrument for the Monitoring and Evaluation of the implementation of the Regional Policy (Audit).

In summary, the group made the following recommendations on issues of policy and possible interventions desirable for inclusion in the Regional Agricultural Policy formulation.

Livestock Rangelands and Public Services

The fourth theme on livestock rangelands and public services considered issues of infrastructure and public services in the livestock sector. The group recommended that the main objective, from the perspective of rangelands and public services, be the "Effective utilisation of natural resources for sustainable livestock development".

The group noted that for improved animal production, it is necessary to provide the following types of feed resources:

• Rangelands;
• Water particularly ground water;
• Crop residues;
• Cultivated pasture; and
• Concentrates (supplement).