MOA conducts training workshop

The Ministry of Agriculture has begun one week training workshop in Barnesville, outside Monrovia on strengthening human resource capacity, PPR, recognition control and containment as well as animal diseases, among others.

Making a presentation on Monday, July 11, at the program, Deputy Agriculture Minister for Technical Services, Dr. Sizi Z. Subah said, there are serious challenges facing Africa, especially in the area of livestock rearing, adding that more attention is needed to help minimize some of those challenges.

He said the Ministry of Agriculture really needs to build the capacity of its human resource; especially those in the technical field to enable them effectively perform within their scope of operations. Dr. Subah cautioned the participants to take the training seriously as it will help to build on their current knowledge in order to become more vibrant.

He said the workshop serves as an opportunity to learn new things and urged the participants to be patience with facilitators that are imparting knowledge into them, while stressing that there are series of specializations in the area of job description, but one needs to function effectively to be recognized.

Also speaking, the Director of African Union Commission and African Union-Interafrican Bureau for Animal Resources (AU-IBAR) Professor Ahmeh Elsawalhy said Africa is home to most of the known endemic transboundary animal diseases (TADs).

He further noted that the impact of this constitutes and continues to be a major constraint for livestock production and trade in Africa, noting that 12 out of 15 known transboundary animal diseases (TADs) are endemic in the continent.

He said among these known TADs, PPR is one of the main devastating diseases of small ruminant across the continent, particularly West Africa. Professor Elsawalhy added that Liberia for the first time experienced PPR outbreak in April 2015, which was confirmed by the technical assistance mission of AU-IBAR and AU-PANVAC from 6-10 July 2016.

He said following confirmation of AU-IBAR, four main activities were proposed to assist the country mainly thru control and containment of the disease as well as strengthening the country’s veterinary services, including development of animal disease contingency plan, PPR outbreak and socio-economic assessment, among others.

By Zee Roberts-Editing by Jonathan Browne