Onyoti: ‘We need to tag cattle to combat theft’

The Minister of Livestock and Fisheries, Onyoti Adigo is proposing tagging in all cattle in the country as a way of combating livestock theft.

Onyoti said that the move would help in the effective retrieval of stolen animals.

“Identification marks and traceability marks are very important to be introduced in South Sudan, and if we do that, we will minimise cattle raiding and theft, which people are going through,” he argued.

He added that the tagging would make it easy to differentiate cattle among communities, which would minimise raiding.

“We need to work to see that the cows from Jonglei belong to Jonglei and the cows from Pibor belong to Pibor by bringing identifications and traceability marks, which we need to introduce in the areas,” he said.

He said that the idea, although believed to be difficult to achieve, can be possible with funds from partners, adding that it has been applied in some countries.

“Some people will think it is difficult, but if we have funds, we can easily do it because it was successful in Botswana and some African countries,” he said.

He said that the plan will start with the registration of cattle at the boma payam and even payam levels.

Onyoti added that under this policy, cattle will be given cards after successful registration after creating serious awareness among the public on why it must be done.

He appealed to the partners to support the idea, emphasising its long-term benefits.

The minister said that all cattle that would be put up for sale or used in marriage must have marks, and their origin must be known.

“So we can say that any cattle coming to the market should have a card; a cow coming to the market without a card should be regarded as stolen cattle and should not be put up for sale,” he said.

“Even if you go for marriage, the person who is going to give a cow for marriage should produce a card for the particular cow that he is bringing so that we know that these are not stolen cows,” he added.

He added that the government can also use the Global Positioning System (GPS) together with tagging to ensure that cattle theft is reduced.

He added that there is a need to commercialise cattle to get more money.