Equalisation fund for northern cattle ‘not implemented’

The agriculture ministry has introduced a price equalisation fund to address low cattle marketing rates and financial disparities affecting farmers in northern communal areas (NCAs), but a farmers’ union says this has not been implemented.

The formal marketing of cattle stands at only 1.5% of the cattle population, which is very low, the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries, Water and Land Reform says.

Ministry spokesperson Simon Nghipandulwa says factors affecting the low market figures include non-operational NCA abattoirs, missing links in the meat value chains, inadequate logistics and processing infrastructure such as feedlots, feeder roads, tanneries, and low cattle prices due to a lack of access to lucrative export markets such as the European Union (EU), Norway, China and the United States (US).

“Due to the animal health status of the NCAs, the international marketing of meat originating from the NCAs is restricted to limited regional markets through approved export abattoirs.

The over-grazed rangelands in large parts of the NCAs is due to low livestock off-take from the land,” the ministry says.

Farmers in the NCAs benefit less from marketing their cattle compared to their counterparts south of the veterinary cordon fence (redline), and this discrepancy discourages farmers in the NCAs from marketing their animals at abattoirs, it says.

The ministry says it introduced the Livestock Marketing Incentive Scheme for the NCAs in 2015, which was a subsidy aimed at mitigating adverse cattle marketing conditions.

The implementation of this scheme was, however, stopped mainly due to the fact that abattoirs in the NCAs were not operational.

The ministry says it then decided to introduce the NCA Price Equalisation Fund (NPEF) to level the field for producers in the NCAs.

“This is done in recognition of the fact that the animal disease status north of the redline is not caused by livestock producers in that part of the country, but they bear the brunt of its negative impact,” it says.

Approved by the Cabinet in 2024, the NPEF is a government initiative aimed at compensating livestock producers north of the redline for the disparities they face compared to their counterparts south of the redline.

Meanwhile, the Namibia National Farmers Union says despite the fund existing, nothing has been done to implement it.

Union chief executive Kuniberth Shamanthe says the Cabinet has approved N$100 million for the operationalisation of the fund, but “nothing has happened on the ground yet”.

He says the union strongly supported the creation of the fund, and the ministry had asked the Meat Corporation of Namibia to come up with a plan as to how the fund would be implemented, but it later transpired that the N$100 million was used for resettlement “apparently due to misunderstanding between the agriculture and finance ministries”.

Shamanthe says the union is currently trying to determine whether the implementation of the fund has been provided for in the 2026/27 budget, as the fund would greatly help cattle producers north of the redline to market their cattle.

He says the union is also concerned about the government’s delay in selling beef from the NCAs to markets in Qatar and Ghana, which the government announced some time ago.

Ministry spokesperson Romeo Muyunda yesterday said there had indeed been a misunderstanding between the finance and agriculture ministries.

However, in the 2026/27 budget, an allocation N$50 million has been set aside, he said.

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