15 Aug 2013

Ngamiland Integrated Farmers Association (NIFA) has called on key stakeholders in the fight against Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD) to clarify some points regarding their relationships.

The stakeholders included Department of Veterinary Services (DVS), National Development Bank (NDB), and Botswana Meat Commission (BMC).Speaking during a kgotla meeting, NIFA chairperson, Mr Simon Bojosi said the main concern was anxiety, which was shown by farmers after the outbreak of FMD in 2007.

He noted that farmers agreed with NDB, that they would pay back the NDB loan automatically as soon as farmers sold their cattle to BMC, which indeed happened but their concern was that NDB did not issue receipts to show prove of payments. Mr Bojosi said this led to farmers not knowing of their balance and even the amount recovered.

Furthermore, he said the money was recovered repeatedly on each herd a farmer had sold, but when farmers raised their concerns they were told that there was a problem with the system and promised to improve the situation.

Another concern was the higher prices, which truck owners charged farmers when transporting their cattle to BMC, with farmers suspecting that BMC had a share on it, as they were speculations that some farmers met secretly with BMC officials and truck owners without any representatives from the farmers associations.

Mr Bojosi also said farmers were also concerned about pricing difference, saying there were European Union (EU) prices, Maun prices and other markets prices.Farmers regarded it as unfair, adding that the buying system favoured farmers from Hainaveld ranches.

When answering the concerns on the loan, Mr Samuel Mothibi of NDB said whenever the system encountered a problem, they were no receipts issued.Mr Mothibi said with regard to the loan repayment, NDB was working on the agreement they made with farmers when they were getting the loans

.For his part, BMC Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Dr Akolang Tombale distanced his office from cattle transportation prices.

He said what the BMC was doing was to get the transportation fee, which a farmer and a truck owner agreed to from the sale of a herd, and give it to the transporter.

Concerning the price of slaughtered cattle, Dr Tombale said pricing was done looking at where the meat was being sold, and only differs depending on the products either canned or not without considering where it came from or the district. Ends