03 May 2016

Botswana Meat Commission’s (BMC) chief executive officer Dr Akolang Tombale says the commission’s plant is underutilised since they slaughter fewer cattle than the expected capacity.

When addressing farmers during Sandveld Ranchers Association field day recently, Dr Tombale said that BMC plant required 250 000 heads a year but only about 220 000 from the 2.2 million cattle population in Botswana were available for slaughter. 

Consequently, Dr Tombale challenged farmers to produce enough cattle to take advantage of available market. 

As part of challenging cattle farmers to see opportunities ahead , the BMC CEO informed them that BMC was currently a P1 billion facility that could go up to P3 billion.

“There are tremendous opportunities that we have as Batswana farmers if we take advantage of the market,” Dr Tombale said. 

The BMC chief informed farmers that they were in route to changing the way they had been going about their business. As such, Dr Tombale said BMC would stop feedlotting and allow farmers to take advantage of the business of feedlots. 

Dr Tombale said that part of the changes would be for farmers to enter into contracts to supply BMC with market ready cattle. He discouraged farmers who advocated for having own abattoirs in their areas and or regions pleading that they should satisfy BMC demands first.

He observed that such abattoirs like the Ngami one posed risks as they exported carcass to the green zone but, the BMC chief requested farmers to combat such challenges. 

Also, farmers who claim will supply BMC when soliciting loans from financial institutions should be bound to supply BMC, said Dr Tombale. 

Dr Tombale called on farmers who ‘spend a lot of time arguing’ to work hard to improve their production. By that, Dr Tombale discouraged what he termed weekend farming where farmers heaped majority of their responsibilities like records keeping to herdboys. Some of the herdboys, he observed, were not educated enough on record keeping. 

However, Dr Tombale sounded a stern warning to non-complying farmers saying, “it is time now that as Batswana we demand that laws be followed, if by so doing will drive someone out of business then it is hard luck.” 

He emphasised  the need to root out measles and keep any chances at bay and  appealed to farmers to build toilets at their farms as a preventive measure. 

Further, Dr Tombale said  it was time  cattle farmers improved their industry in order to satisfy the European market, which he said was still open though it demanded cattle that were EU compliant. 

He also revealed that BMC would soon avail its tender and beef to local market for consumption though a huge chunk is exported outside the country. He was excited that McDonalds food chain store audited the commission and awarded it 93 per cent. Ends