23 Mar 2014

Botswana Meat Commission (BMC) Francistown plant manager, Mr Bosiela Saudu says they are anticipating a better cattle supply this year.

Briefing the media on the Francistown BMC state of business recently, 18 Mr  Saudu said, last year, the cattle supply kept on declining to a point whereby it was not economical to continue with production by the end of October last year.

He said last year, the abattoir slaughtered only 38 000 cattle out of the 60 000 target. He said this year, the Francistown BMC has come up with a number of initiatives aimed at ensuring the 68 000 cattle slaughter target was met.

Mr Saudu said one of the initiatives was to ensure improved relationship and engagement of farmers by BMC on regular basis to address logistical bottlenecks that farmers face when bringing cattle to BMC.

“We have intensified our cattle supply campaign coupled with increased buying prices for direct cattle purchase and direct slaughter,” he said.

He said though this year started on a low note with only 900 cattle out of the average of 3000 in February, he was optimistic that between April and June the abattoir will receive a good number of cattle.

Mr Saudu attributed the low supply to the recent rains saying they made most areas not accessible and farmers were unable to round up their cattle to bring to BMC.

“Good rains in the north reduced culling rate of cows that would otherwise come for slaughter when farmers anticipate drought as when they are good rains farmers choose to keep the cattle as breeding stock,” he said.

Mr Saudu said as part of the Francistown BMC strategy plan, they want to further develop other regional markets to reduce over dependence on South Africa.

“We want to further develop the live trade in order to assist farmers in Zone 7 and possibly Zone 3b who cannot sell their cattle directly to us without having to quarantine them first,” he explained.

He noted that the farmers in the Zones 7 and 3b have already accepted live trade and only the import permits are awaited.

The senior shipping officer, Mr Mothibedi Latlhang said as a way of better marketing the BMC products, instead of engaging a third party, shops can directly buy from BMC.

Mr Latlhang said they realised that engaging a distributor led to shops selling the products at a higher price than the imported products.

“We will also ensure our products are visible in the shop shelves because we realised that they were not packed in such a way that customers can see them,” he said.

BMC Communications Manager, Mr Tiro Kganela said he was hopeful that the newly formed union for farmers will improve communication between all beef industry stakeholders.

He implored the media to always ensure they write objective articles about the BMC and Botswana beef industry because any skewed information has potential of affecting the industry negatively. ENDS