Listen up, livestock farmers. Understanding your animal’s health and safety is vital and this week we partner with Afrivet and their One Health campaign, which focuses on everything farmers should know about animal health.
Joining this week’s Farmers Inside Track podcast is Vuyokazi Makapela, a director at Afrivet, who unpacks what the One Health campaign is about and what livestock farmers can look forward to.
Kicking off the conversation, Makapela points out that there are common health threats that affect both humans and animals.
One Health, she explains, is an interconnection between human, animals and environmental health.
“It’s a concept that came into existence in 2004 and as a collaborative approach to address shared health threats … that are passed from animals to humans, and [then to] the environment.”
Farmers are the most important people as without them South Africans would not have food, she adds.
“They basically ensure food security, as we at Afrivet ensure food safety… Even more important, our communal farmers hold almost 50% of the animals in our country, and the other 50% is in the hands of our commercial farmers.
“It is thus imperative to capacitate our communal farmers, not only on how to handle their assets, but on how to identify diseases as early identification of diseases is quite critical,” Makapela says.
In podcast Makapela elaborates on:
- The link between zoonotic and human diseases;
- What farmers can look forward to learning in the One health campaign;
- The Afrivet app and how it works; and
- Private and public partnerships.
Want to know more? Listen to the full episode of Farmer’s Inside Track.
Option 1: Click here to listen on Spotify (all mobile and other devices).
Option 2: Click here to listen on any Apple device.
Option 3: Click here to listen on Google Podcasts.
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