Eastern Province has the third highest number of livestock in the country.

Eastern Province has the third highest number of domestic animals in the country.
Speaking during a radio programme, dubbed Budget Tracking on Breeze FM, Provincial Veterinary Officer, Arthur Mumbolomena says that Eastern is only beaten by Southern and Western Provinces.
Dr. Mumbolomena explained that according to statistics, the province has 440,000 heads of cattle, 260,000 pigs, 350,000 goats while poultry stands at about 1.5 million.
And Dr. Mumbolomena says that the long time ban on the movement of pigs from the region due to outbreak of African swine fever, still stands because the disease does not have a vaccine or cure.
He however, explained that the Veterinary Department is not sitting idle but carrying out disease control measures and compartmentalization.
Dr. Mumbolomena explained that compartmentalization is a system where certain farms that follow biosecurity measures are allowed to export their pigs if they do not report any disease cases for some time.
Meanwhile Mambwe, Nyimba Petauke and Sinda districts have the highest infestation rate of tsetse flies, which has also affected human beings.
Senior Tsetse Control Biologist, James Sikazindu says that tsetse flies seriously reduce on the productivity of animals while in humans it causes sleeping sickness.
Meanwhile the Veterinary Department has this year so far received about 1.2 million Kwacha under the 2015 national budgetary allocation, which is about 27 per cent of the approved budget.
Senior Tsetse Control Biologist, James Sikazindu says that this is from a total budgetary allocation of about 4.5 million Kwacha.
Speaking on Budget Tracking Programme, Mr. Sikazindu explained that most of the money has been spent on procurement of stationary, payment of allowances to officers supervising various projects, purchase of fuel and payment of bills.
He however, indicated that the Department was likely to experience a similar situation like last year where only 1.2 million out of a budgetary allocation of 4.1 million Kwacha was released.
Mr. Sikazindu says that this inconsistent release of funds to the department had a huge impact as some of the programmes were not being implemented.
Speaking during the same programme, Senior Livestock Production Officer, Grace Lungu says that the department is spending about 2.1 million Kwacha under livestock development and about 1.9 million Kwacha on livestock diseases.
Ms. Lungu explained that among the many projects being undertaken, the department is constructing 14 deep tanks in seven districts, livestock service centers and artificial insemination centers.