Windhoek
Meatco CEO Adv Vekuii Rukoro says the company is intensifying its efforts to create new production systems and initiatives, that will ensure increased volume.
The local market is still not a high-value earner and currently accounts for only 11.5 percent of Meatco’s annual sales, but remains of high strategic importance to Meatco.
Addressing the sustainability of beef production, Rukoro made the remarks last Friday as guest speaker at the annual Meatco Producer of the Year Awards in Windhoek. He said Meatco’s new procurement policy would create greater marketing flexibility for producers and a more proactive cattle procurement system.
He expressed concern though about the sector’s sustainability being threatened by South Africa’s restrictive animal health requirements for Namibian livestock imports and warned that if and when implemented the new restrictions could bring the local industry to its knees.
“Through the Meat Board’s national livestock marketing committee, we’ve adopted short- and medium-term interventions for the sector, which include achieving compliance with SA import requirements, improving utilisation of available grazing capacity locally, and developing alternative markets for our live weaners and goats,” he said.
He added that the local market remains very important, as Meatco needs the cattle produced to enable the company to sell premium products to the world. “Our long-term perspective is that we see more value-addition being done in our country. At Meatco we’ve embraced this principle as outlined in the Ministry of Industrialisation, Trade and SME Development’s Growth at Home Strategy. A critical element of this is to recognise our producers – both communal and commercial – for their tenacity and for putting Namibia on the map as one of the recognised producers of premium beef in the world.”
He reiterated that marketing meat from the Northern Communal Areas remains a challenge due to on average older and leaner animals brough to market.
“These are challenging times in our livestock industry. The continued delivery of quality cattle for slaughter thus requires a new mindset and a new common approach. The livestock sector accounts for some 80 percent of Namibia’s total agricultural production.
“This is a very important sector in terms of the generation of foreign revenues, employment and rural poverty reduction,” he concluded.