Shameful Meatco Price Cuts
IT IS with great concern that I read in your paper the misleading remarks by Meatco’s communications and marketing manager, Mario Poolman. It is too easy to reduce Meatco’s problems to a few ID tags and its implications.
Meatco for example was not in position in 2012 to supply the local market with decent and adequate beef. In the past 15 years, South Africa’s average prices were used as benchmark to determine a ‘’fair’’ offer to our Namibian producers. Surely non-compliant cattle still produce healthy, good beef that is fit for the SA market and prices at benchmark level!
SA is a net importer of beef since they cannot produce sufficient quantities for their own market. About 70 percent of our exports end up in SA eventually. According to Farmer’s Weekly magazine, Namibian beef trimmings (off-cuts) fetch N$40 to N$45 per kilogram, compared to approximately N$18 average, less deductions, that Meatco wants to hand out to Namibian producers.
It is interesting that Meatco is lobbying for closed borders for oxen if this ‘’less 25 percent price’’ scenario prevails in SA. No producer in his right mind would ever load an ox on a transporter to fetch these shameful prices that Meatco maintains exist in SA, hence making it a waste of time and effort anyway to close the border to SA.
One also wonders about Meatco’s ever-growing feedlots. Is this not one of the factors increasing losses where the farmer has to eventually foot the bill for the running of these lots, especially considering the price paid for transport and fodder which is increasingly scarce in the light of huge droughts hitting southern Africa?
It is high time that free-market conditions are reinstated in Namibia’s meat industry, otherwise all EU efforts for lending a helping hand to Namibia’s already battered producers will be to no avail.
In fact, ID and health regulations at this moment lead to abuse and manipulation of prices by monopolistic entities.
Hopefully, the new CEO’s arrival will bring an end to this tug-of-war between Meatco and its clearly not so appreciated producers.
Disgruntled Farmer
Swakopmund