07 Apr 2025

Residents of Makalamabedi have called on the Botswana Meat Commission (BMC) to consider an increase in buying prices of their cattle. 

They complained that the Maun abattoir was competing with private abattoirs, which purchased animals at a better price of P36 per kg compared to the BMC’s P31 per kg.

The residents aired their views during a kgotla meeting addressed by the Vice President, Mr Ndaba Gaolathe over the weekend.

Residents said farmers had been playing a vital role in the success of BMC but the low prices had forced majority of the farming community to resort to selling their animals to the private abattoirs and some local butcheries because they paid better and on time.

They said it was unfair as in other areas considered green zones, farmers were reaping the benefits of their animals as they enjoyed European Union lucrative markets. Farmers proposed a standard buying price, which would promote equity and incentivise the supply of cattle to the BMC.

Increasing the cattle-buying price, they said, would also boost  cattle industry, citing that farmers would take advantage of the increase and sell their cattle in numbers.

The Village Development Committee chairperson, Mr Lebogang Kelebang said BMC should up its game to restore the farmers waning confidence in the abattoir.

Farmers, he said depended on cattle as their source of income and blamed low prices to lack of lucrative market from the district as a result of Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD).

“Our region has been declared a red zone and yet residents depended on rearing of livestock for survival but they were not reaping the benefits from their animals,” he said.

Mr Kelebang said if the increase  of purchase price was not successful, the abattoir should strive to secure more markets for Ngamiland beef.

He noted that farmers spent a lot in management of their livestock but was unfortunate, as they could not recover the costs they incur in cattle production due to low prices.

Mr Kelebang also decried delay in payment of farmers by BMC and called on the abattoir to provide efficient and timely payments to farmers.

He also called for improvement of infrastructure such as roads to the agricultural production areas, citing the Xedumo-Samedupi-Nxaraga road, which he said could help enable efficient transportation of imports and exports and access to markets.

The human-wildlife-conflict was also highlighted as a threat to pastoral and arable farming and Mr Kelebang called for the electrification of the protection fence as a measure to reduce elephant migration and stock theft.

Maun East MP, Mr Goretetse Kekgonegile pointed out that the market challenges incurred by farmers had rendered the cattle farming less profitable.

He said pastoral farming was paramount to the economy of the region and proposed that the government should consider introducing the agricultural guarantee schemes so that farmers could gain more from pastoral farming.“Some farmers in other regions used their livestock as security to access financial assistance from institutions but here, farmers cannot do that because their animals were not accessing the rewarding market,” he added. He also emphasised that provision of adequate infrastructure was paramount for boosting agriculture production and food security, citing energy, good road networks and telecommunication among others. ENDS