04 Jul 2016

The Minister of Agriculture, Mr Patrick Ralotsia, says there is a prospect for Botswana to explore the possibilities of expanding its beef market to Kenya.

In an interview after a Kenya delegation toured Botswana Meat Commission (BMC) in Lobatse recently, Mr Ralotsia said the prospects were propelled by the high population of cattle.

He said he was happy that the delegation was impressed by the meat quality, the high technology and the hygienic processes involved in beef production iy.

He said the cattle industry in Botswana had become one of the largest employers in the country, led by the meat commission, adding that the industry had a variety of end products such leather industry.

He said Botswana beef was of high standard compared to that of Kenya and therefore high level talks were in progress to find ways of expanding the market to Kenya.

Mr Ralotsia said the Kenyans were impressed by the beef production standards and the cattle breeds existing here a thing he said brought them on board as the next beef market.

He said they had also been impressed by especially the type of cattle slaughtered for export considering the type of breed and size.

For his part, Kenya minister of agriculture Mr Willy Bett said it was clear that Botswana came as one of the leading countries in beef production and had largely been impressed.

Not only was Botswana a leading country in beef production but had high standards in Africa and the world at large.

He said the tour was instrumental on how Kenya could improve its beef production standard especially considering that the relations between Kenya and Botswana were triggered by the similarity in their beef production.

Mr Bett said Botswana and Kenya’s beef production and export started almost at the same time, but Botswana had moved a step ahead.

He therefore said he realised that it was time to see where Kenya could have gone wrong in terms of growing the industry and learning from Botswana model was the best thing.

He said from this tour, Kenya would have to adopt the Botswana model in order to rejuvenate its beef industry.

He said he was largely impressed by the breeds that are bred for beef production which are larger, robust and thicker in size and are looking at developing their breeds.

The Kenya minister said his ministry is even having talks with genetic laboratory in Botswana to see how there can be generic transfer of the local breed to Kenya.

As African countries in the same market area, the minister said he was looking forward to see open up trade and free movement of goods and services, and hopeful that the efforts will bear fruit to see Kenyans accessing the Botswana beef market.

The Kenyan agriculture personnel that accompanied their minister had come to bench mark in Botswana to see how the local industry is performing in terms of meat production and its success story in exporting meat products to especially the European market. ENDS