05 Jul 2017

Principal Veterinary Officer for Kweneng, Dr Elisha Nyakarombo has urged farmers to register their holdings as it will save government funds that are spent on holding cattle at private feedlots to get them ready for the European Union (EU) market.

Holdings include areas such as fenced fields, crushes and water points.

Addressing farmers during a workshop for BAITS farmers training at Poje crush near Khudumelapye recently, Dr Nyakarombo said the EU market required that cattle slaughtered for it should be traceable, which forced Botswana Meat Commission (BMC) to keep cattle at private feedlots to build their traceability records before they are slaughtered.

Dr Nyakarombo explained that since 2011, the ministry had been registering holdings only in the form of feedlots and fenced farms, but that on realisation that 80 per cent of cattle in Botswana were in the hands of communal farmers, government found the need to include things such as crushes and water points as holdings.

He said at the moment, only 20 per cent of the total cattle population in the country were readily EU market eligible.

He said this was what forced government to resort to using private feedlots to ensure that cattle from communal areas were EU compliant.

Dr Nyakarombo therefore said if holdings such as water points, crushes and fields, where communal farmers kept their cattle were registered, it would save government money as the need for usage of private feedlots would be eliminated as cattle from communal areas could be slaughtered right away for the EU market.

He said government had the intention of ceasing using private feedlots, which can only be possible if communal farmers registered their holdings, hence the need to go around educating them on the importance of registering.

For her part, Kweneng West BAITS officer, Ms Goitsemang Lentswe said farmers in the area had a tendency of ear-tagging their cattle only when they intended to sell them as ear-tagging was one of the requirement to sell to BMC.

She observed that most of the time, only males were tagged as they were the ones mostly sold.

She also said most farmers hardly used zonal brands, which was also required for export to the EU as it was part of the traceability system.

Ms Lentswe also advised farmers to use their online registration system as it was much quicker than registering at the office, and also advised farmers to always ensure they captured vital information such as gender and colour of their cattle correctly when capturing the information.

She however revealed that despite the challenges of farmers reluctant to tag their cattle, statistics indicated that Kweneng District had a total of 98 094 cattle tagged, making it the second district after Ghanzi with the highest total number of cattle tagged.

The objectives of the workshop were to enlighten and train farmers on how to register their holdings for EU market compliance. ENDS