The Executive Commissioner for Agriculture at the Ovaherero Traditional Authority says farmers need to ensure the optimum health of their animals for them to produce more.

Dr. Baby Kaurivi-Katunahange said this during a livestock health education meeting at the HereroFest in Okahandja. 

Dr. Kaurivi-Katunahange noted that it is important to keep animals healthy to improve production and reproduction.

"Basic animal health is like making sure that prevention is better than cure. You have to make sure that the vaccinations are up-to-date, and you have to make sure that the deworming is done to ensure that external parasites are controlled. Before you treat an animal, it must have had preventive measures, so treatment is like a second option. For treatment, you have to use antibiotics and anti-inflammatory drugs, as well as the supplementation of vitamins and minerals that's important for basic animals." 

She urged farmers to be on the lookout for diseases including lumpy skin disease, anthrax, and foot-and-mouth disease, among others.

"Especially now that we are getting into winter, a lot of malnutrition is going to happen, so farmers need to supplement with multivitamins and multiminerals because if an animal is deficient, it is going to have an abortion and damaged placentas."

She also had this tip to share with farmers on animal health as the country approaches the winter season.

"We are heading into winter, so people need to supplement for vitamin A as it is only in green grass, and now the grass is getting dry." 

HeroroFest was born from the Ovaherero Constitution, and it aims to bring the Ovaherero people together to celebrate their cultural heritage and also share knowledge in various economic sectors. 

"I am very, very happy with the turnout because, as you know, we never had a festival; we used to go to commemoration, and this was a new thing we started, and this was a very good turnout. The important part was the message, which people learned from the experts we brought. People usually pay, and they got this for free for almost seven days," said HereroFest organiser, Alfons Koruhama.