EU Beef Market Still Elusive

Monkagedi Gaothobogwe | Monday February 24, 2014 15:21

 

Tombale says there is scarcity of cattle matching the EU market quality requirements. According to him 90% of Botswana’s cattle feed in communal pastures, something that disqualifies them for the EU market. They are required to be kept in an enclosed and registered facility.

Even of concern was the CEO’s acknowledgement that even the majority of the enclosed facilities are not registered, and therefore cannot export their beef to Europe.

Dr. Tombale says the BMC has been appealing to government and communities to spare land for the organisation to enable it to develop European market quality facilities with the aim of improving the beef quality in Botswana.

He announced that already they have secured land in Dibete, while searches for more land continue. The European Market performance however comes in a largely buoyant 2013 for the BMC in which they grossed more than one Billion, the BMC’s best performance in five years.

Besides the EU market, the BMC sold 16,000 tonnes for the South African market, earning the organisation P389m. Some 28,000 tonnes were sold to other markets, including locally, earning the BMC P500m.

Despite struggling to satisfy the EU and thereby losing on the lucrative market, Tombale says last year’s performance was their first profitable year in five years. 

He expects a profit of P37 million to be announced after the auditing. Despite announcing their best results in recent years, the BMC also revealed that generally they struggled  to attract cattle, as they managed about 63% of their target or about 8,000 of their targeted 123,000 heads.

Dr. Tombale says despite the seemingly low figures productivity has increased at BMC; “People are no longer sitting there and saying there is no cattle, they know they have to go out there to find the cattle; we no longer have people suspending slaughter of cattle simply because there is no water; they know what to do now as an alternative”, Dr. Tombale said.

The BMC  also revealed that measles continues to be a concern for cattle bought from communal farmers. Although the BMC try to detain and treat the infected cattle, they say in cases where they find more than 10 spots of measles in a beast, they condemn the carcass.