Following the good rains received in most part of the country, Meatco has urged farmers to market their cattle with the meat processing and marketing entity, saying that the corporation pays market related prices to farmers.
“It is important for Meatco to service its markets both locally and internationally sustainably. Although with the good rains received this season, producers are restocking, we cannot ignore our clients’ need to receive products that are of the highest quality,” says Corporate Affairs Manager Rosa Hamukuaja-Thobias.
“To meet client needs, the department aims to buy animals from communal and commercial producers through strategically devised platforms, such as permit days scheduled in the communal areas, which allow mass gatherings where the department can buy many animals.”
She said the Livestock Production and Value-Addition Department has devised a robust strategy to buy cattle from all Namibian cattle producers with marketable cattle.
“The department also robustly sources animals at communal and commercial auction days organised through farmers’ associations or organised agricultural entities,” she added.
Thobias said the corporation can also buy animals directly from the farm using a platform referred to as “on-farm permit days”, which is an arranged sale between Meatco and the farmer where the farmer receives payment immediately to avoid additional transportation costs.
The direct delivery of cattle by communal and commercial producers to Meatco’s export abattoir is another way the corporation aims at actively buying animals this year, Thobias said.
She said producers can also directly deliver the animals to Meatco’s various daily permanent buying points like the Annasruh Feedlot, situated some 30 kilometres east of Gobabis in the Omaheke region, the Klein Hamakari buying point in the Otjozondjupa region due to open by the end of this month as well as at the Okapuka feedlot, 25km from Meatco’s head office.
Furthermore, Thobias said Meatco is rolling out a special feeder’s contract, which will bind cattle producers to deliver a fixed number of animals per month for the period April 2021 to January 2022.
“We have issued a call for an expression of interest through the media, inviting qualifying and capable cattle producers to apply,” she stressed.
Also, she said besides these strategies, the corporation will also buy animals from neighbouring Botswana.
“Namibia and Botswana have the same animal health standards, and that country also has access to the European Union market,” she said.
Therefore, she said, sourcing cattle from Botswana will secure raw material for the local market and leaving the Namibian cattle south of the Veterinary Cordon Fence (VCF) for the international markets.
- ktjitemisa@nepc.co.na