Department of Livestock and Fisheries is one among the 13 Departments in Arusha District that deliver services to Arusha District community members. There are 81 Staff, out of which 15 are stationed at the Headquarter and 64 Staffs works at ward and village levels. However, department is lacking 16 field officers and vehicle to facilitated smooth operation of department roles. The core functions of the department include the following:
•Coordination of Livestock Extension service providers at all levels: Department of livestock and fisheries is mandated to coordinating all service providers from a District level to village level by facilitating them to achieve their goals and ensuring provision of appropriate services to the community.
•Diseases control. Department coordinating animal disease control measures, supervising and control entry and exit of animals and animal products, supervising the supply and distribution of veterinary inputs, coordinating animal disease surveillance and diagnosis and making sure all animal disease legislations are enforced.
•Supervision of Livestock markets. Department providing Livestock movement permits and to ensure the adequate and proper Infrastructures to all Livestock markets eg. Loading and off Loading structure.
•Coordination and Strengthening of Research– Extension-Livestock Farmer - Linkages. The Department ensures accurate and timely delivery of technical packages to Livestock farming communities through Subject Matter Specialists and other Livestock extension services providers.
•Public –Private Partnership in the Facilitation of Livestock Extension Services. Department ensure that all private Livestock Extension service providers are identified and their areas of operations known as well as their capacity gaps.
•Strengthening of Infrastructure and Facilities for Livestock Extension Services. Through demarcating land for commercial Livestock farming and to ensure proper infrastructure and facilities.
•Cross - Cutting Issues. Department of Livestock collaborates with other stakeholders to institute mechanisms for coordinating the mainstreaming of these issues into Livestock services.
•Clarification of roles and responsibilities of various Stakeholders. The Department map out livestock farmer categories and their respective needs, promote commercial livestock farming and value addition practices for livestock products.
The department has two units, namely; Livestock and Fisheries. Livestock and Fisheries operation starts at District level to village level with the coverage of 27 wards and 67 villages. The District has a total area of 144669.2 ha (1446.7Km²) of land suitable for agriculture and livestock and more than 50,600.5ha (506Km²) suitable for grazing. However, about 50, 424.7ha (50424.7Km²) are in use for agriculture and livestock, while 175.8 hectare (1.8Km²) are not in use.
Livestock unit deals with infrastructure and livestock management and data. In line with this, the District has allocated land in some areas which is used for building Livestock infrastructures to improve livestock services in the District. However, the District has 6 Slaughter houses, out of which 2 Slaughter houses are owned by the District and 4 slaughter houses by private livestock keepers. Other infrastructures are in the District are 26 charcoal dams and 8 veterinary centers.
More so the unit ensures that, there is up to-date livestock data through conducting livestock census from all villages each year. The livestock population for the year 2016 is 208,700 cattle, whereby indigenous cattle are 189,227 and dairy cattle are 19,473. Dairy goats are 1,490 and indigenous goats are 199,175 which make the total number of goats to be 200,665. Poultry population is 364915, out of which broiler chicken are 30,256, layers chickens are 36,000, indigenous chicken are 295,389 and the total number of ducks are 3,270. According to that census the populations of other domestic animals are 14,675 donkeys, 31 camels, 821 pigs, 4384 dogs, 2,354 cats and 10 horses. Data from slaughter houses and milk collection centers shows that, the Beef meat produced were 583,200kgs, Pork meat produced were 43,680kgs, goat meat were 15,840kgs, and sheep meat were 33,194kgs. The total amount of milk, animal skins, and hides produced per year is as follows: milk produced was 3,374,720 litres, skins were 13,644 pieces, goat hides were 4,344 pieces, and sheep hides were 4000 pieces.
Fisheries unit deals with all issues related to fishing, whereas in the District these activities are practiced in form of aquaculture (fish farming) due to absence of natural water bodies such as lakes and rivers. Therefore, the Department of Livestock and Fisheries introduced aquaculture practice as a source of income and food to the community members.
In order to facilitate fish farming the District established 3 demonstration fish ponds; 2 of these fish ponds are located at the District headquarter and the 1 located at Nane Nane exhibition ground. Establishment of demonstration fish ponds and services provided by staff of the section resulted to establishment of 30 fish farmers and 2 fish farming groups, whereas in total the district has 40 ponds located at various Wards including Bangata, Kiutu, Moivo and Ngaramtoni. Out of the 40 ponds, 3 are owned by the district council, 2 are owned by fish farming groups at Kimnyaki village and the rest 35 are owned by private fish farmers.
