Ghanzi Farmers Plead For Delivery

As government has laid out an ambitious mandate to revolutionise the agricultural sector, targeting food control and increasing national herd to five million, Ghanzi farmers asserted the success of the vision would depend heavily on the government delivering on its key promises. The alleged key promises, includes implementation of the liberalisation of the beef industry from Botswana Meat Commission (BMC) monopoly. Speaking during farmers consultative meeting on Monday, Ghanzi Farmers Association, Mr Quinton Barnes, decried that the current outbreak of Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD) had proven that financial reality of being a farmer in Botswana was disgruntling especially in cattle farming.

He said the main reason for the farmers to find themselves trapped in the deep ends emanated from government’s delay in eliminating the BMC monopoly despite the policy having been repealed by Parliament in 2019. Mr Barnes emphasised that provided the liberalisation policy could have been implemented, farmers could have been able to penetrate other regional markets during this difficult time to make returns, saying that could make the industry more lucrative. “Let us not put our eggs in one basket by considering the European Union market only, let us expand our horizons to accommodate other alternative markets,” he pleaded.

He alluded that 80 per cent of cattle supplied to BMC are from Ghanzi block and in the midst of FMD outbreak, they are left in the lurch hence he called for government to establish an emergency relief fund more especially for subsistence farmers across regions. Despite the outbreak of FMD in Zone 11 and 13, he proposed that government could have also imposed relaxed regulations within unaffected zones but with attached cautionary measures to create room for businesses to thrive and farmers to sustain themselves. He also cited the cattle buying process at BMC, which he said needed to be reviewed since farmers were required to sell mature animals weighing about 400kg and leaving out weaners due to their underweight bodies.

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He therefore, said there was an opportunity in external markets like South Africa where farmers could at least sell their weaners. He cautioned that, the process of slaughtering matured cattle would have an adverse impact on efforts of increasing national herd as those required by BMC are those that could be used mainly for production. Meanwhile, he called for the government to fasttrack the implementation of the Meat Industry Regulatory Authority (MIRA) that he said would help to close the existing gaps in the industry.

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