By Edward S. Tjihinga
I have consistently advocated for the removal of Namibia’s Red Line. The latest Foot and Mouth Disease outbreak has only strengthened my conviction that we need to confront this issue honestly.
When FMD is detected in the North, the answer has historically been to draw or enforce a line and restrict the North from accessing the livestock markets of the South.
But now FMD has been detected inside the FMD-free zone, in Karasburg, and the response is different: the restrictions are nationwide. Ten of 11 cattle tested positive, and government suspended the movement, marketing and trade of cloven-hoofed animals and their products across the country.
We must ask a simple question:
Why is the solution a line when the disease is in the North, but the whole country when the disease is in the South?
That is an inconsistency we cannot ignore.
For decades, northern Namibia has lived with the economic consequences of the Red Line. Cattle north of the Veterinary Cordon Fence cannot simply enter the FMD-free zone and compete on the same terms as cattle south of it.
The Red Line may have a veterinary justification. But its history and consequences cannot be separated from politics, geography and economics. It has effectively helped create two livestock economies within one Namibia.
I believe we have reached the point where we must stop protecting the system and start protecting Namibians.
This does not mean ignoring FMD. Contain it. Control it. Protect our farmers and protect our export markets.
But do it through modern disease-control mechanisms: surveillance, traceability, testing, quarantine, controlled movement and risk-based zoning; not by maintaining permanent economic exclusion.
And creating more fences is not automatically reform. Government is already considering dividing the FMD-free zone into smaller areas so that unaffected areas can continue trading when an outbreak occurs.
But Namibia should ask an even bigger question:
Why are we designing new lines when we should be designing a better system?
Our communal farmers in Kavango, Zambezi, Omusati, Ohangwena, Oshikoto and elsewhere deserve more than being told that their cattle are permanently on the wrong side of a fence.
Their cattle are wealth.
Their cattle are livelihoods.
Their cattle are food security.
Their cattle are part of Namibia’s economy.
We cannot continue building an economy where one part of Namibia produces livestock that can access premium markets while another part is structurally restricted from doing the same.
Namibia is one country. Its livestock economy should ultimately work for Namibia as a whole.
The Karasburg outbreak has exposed something we should no longer be afraid to say:
The Red Line is not the only way to protect Namibia’s livestock.
It is time to remove it and replace it with a modern, science-based system that protects animal health without permanently excluding northern Namibia from the livestock economy.
We should not protect a system simply because we inherited it.
We should build a system that benefits Namibia as a whole.
The time to rethink the Red Line is now.
