31 Oct 2019

Botswana Meat Commission (BMC) Maun abattoir  is reported to have experienced a tough year as some of the targets were not achieved.

The plant manager, Mr Oabona Ramotshwara confirmed in an interview that indeed they had a tough year, though they had some positives.

He cited the implementation of the quarantine system at Makalamabedi as one of those producing good results.

The introduction of the quarantine system was in line with the Commodity Based Trade (CBT) model, which has been adopted in an effort to address lack of markets for the Ngamiland beef, resulting from continuous Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD) outbreaks.

It was reported that the CBT strategy helps to minimise risks associated with commodities.

He explained that the abattoir had failed to reach its slaughter target, which was 19 000 animals in a year, but only managed to slaughter 9 800 to date.

Mr Ramotshwara said they failed to reach their target because they did not get the number of cattle they wanted.

He attributed the failure to refusal by farmers to send more cattle to the quarantine.

He said the first three months of the year were a serious challenge as many farmers were not committed to the new arrangement, while the quarantine also had limited space as one paddock accommodates 600 animals and currently only four paddocks were operational, which means 2 400 animals were accommodated at a time.

Mr Ramotshwara stated that things got better in April as the first intake of animals was satisfactory, adding that to date, they managed three rounds and slaughtered 6 000 animals.

He said efforts were made to look for more cattle from other zones, but they realised that they were competing with other abattoirs.

He also revealed that the abattoir experienced a challenge of selling meat because the local market was saturated.

Most of their products, he said, were sold locally, but stated that they worked hard to access markets.

Currently, he said they were left with a few tonnes of beef, which would be sold before the end of the year.

He said they had also secured markets in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Mozambique, but pointed out that they had been battling as the markets were open to other countries and pricing was difficult to control.

Another challenge experienced by the abattoir, he said, was late payments to suppliers.

The plant manager revealed that they had improved on the payment turnaround time, as now they were taking 45-60 days as opposed to the six months as was the case before.

Mr Ramotshwara said they had managed to clear the backlog and they were currently paying farmers who supplied in September, hoping that they would complete all the payments before the end of the year.

The turnaround time is supposed to be 14 days.

Despite the challenges, the plant manager is optimistic that they would turn things around going forward, with support from the farmers and other stakeholders.

He said they had plans to access market that could pay better such as Angola and Namibia.

Mr Ramotshwara urged farmers to continue sending cattle to the quarantine as the abattoir would do its part as well.

He said they should also appreciate that the abattoir had increased the purchasing price from P19 per kg to P23 per kg.

Meanwhile, last year some farmers from the Okavango region threatened to stop selling cattle to BMC, complaining about disparity in buying prices.

They cited that at Lobatse BMC, cattle were bought at P33 per kg, Francistown abattoir buys at P23, while Maun was P19 per kg and P8 for light weight cattle respectively. ENDS