12 Sep 2016

Chief executive officer Botswana Meat Commission (BMC) Dr Akolang Tombale has urged farmers to take a lead in addressing matters that affect the BMC and the beef industry.
Speaking at the 2^nd BMC Baruakgomo Pitso in Francistown on Friday (September 9), Dr Tombale admitted that the BMC is experiencing problems at the moment because of the  poor market image with many farmers unwilling to deal with them due to their perceived inflexibility and low prices.
He explained that some communal farmers may not sell their cattle at the optimum time but may make their disposal based on individual’s cash requirements.
Dr Tompale said the combination of a strong perception of low cattle prices and declining viability of farming is leading to increased political pressure to remove the export monopoly.
Dr Tombale said the BMC production analysis production profile between the years 1966 and 2004 has shown that with an annual production capacity of 250 000 cattle in its three plants, it only achieved peak production between the years 1976 and 1984 of between 200 000 and 250 000 cattle.
However, he said the peak period fell in the period when only Lobatse was operating since Maun was commissioned in 1983/84 whereas Francistown was commissioned in 1987/88.
In addition Dr Tombale said by 2004 the throughput had fallen to 130  000 cattle about 51 per cent plant utilization capacity on the basis of 220 production days.
He noted that if international standard of production day is applied to BMC the utilization capacity falls to 45 per cent therefore the adoption of international standards of 250 production days meant that annual slaughter capacity of the Lobatse plant was excess of the total slaughter capacity of BMC. This capacity underutilization is unsustainable.
Furthermore he said run commercially BMC cannot operate both Francistown and Lobatse together especially for EU market supply because they now depends solely on BMC Lobatse for financial support.
For his part director of Department of Veterinary Services (DVS) Dr Letlhogile Modisa said the Botswana meat industry clocked 12 months with Foot and Mouth Diseases (FMD) in Maun.
He said they lived 22 years without the disease in Botswana therefore they must look back and see how the cause really is.
Dr Modisa encouraged farmers to sell cattle as much as possible to EU market because there is a lot of opportunity that comes with that, adding that some newe markets were opening, especially to Israel in October this year and  three of them  are in SADC region.
Dr Modisa said there is a lot of demand for meat. However, he urged farmers to benchmark in other countries as a part of strategy to see how they run the beef industry.
He noted that BMC technical business model should be revised adding that the feedlot should be done by the farmers and removed from the BMC. ENDS