Meat shortages loom in Zimbabwe

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Harare, Zimbabwe, April 17 (Infosplusgabon) - Zimbabwe is facing potential shortages of pork, chicken and beef as government's removed grain subsidies last week increased stock feed prices resulting in livestock farmers opting to reduce production to save costs.

 

On Tuesday, the Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries held a meeting involving the country’s business membership organizations (BMOs) to discuss the recent wave in price hikes.

 

During the meeting, the Livestock and Meat Advisory Council (LMAC) which represents the livestock industry in Zimbabwe told other BMOs that government removing grain subsidies made it difficult for livestock farmers to feed their animals. This has thus forced them to potentially scale back livestock production.

 

“By just changing overnight, the grain marketing policies without consultations to the commercial livestock sector which has been a major partner of government and GMB (Grain Marketing Board) the farmer has been introduced to a big shock. Now, there is a risk to the billion dollar industry,” LMAC economist Reneth Mano told Panapress yesterday in an interview who also confirmed the meeting of BMOs.

 

“And the main threat really is if you are a poultry breeder and you are producing day-olds and you cannot access maize at affordable prices you may have to cut production. If you are piggery producer with imported breeding stock like a lot of our medium and large scale producers when you cannot feed pigs you may have to scale down or kill some of them to convert into pork.”

 

In terms of beef, he said since cow feed was largely imported as the animals are mostly fed soya meal this would cascade into higher prices for the feed due to the cost to purchase foreign currency.

 

“So, stock feed prices of course went up by about 20% in prices which in my opinion is a reaction to the change in the maize and grain pricing,” Mano said.

 

“Using our (Zimbabwe’s) basic demand, meat sales could fall by as much as 20% or 30%.”

 

According to minutes of the BMO meeting obtained by Panapress, LMAC said government removing the grain GMB subsidies affected the stock feed industry as it is made up of 78% maize, 20% soya meal and mineral nutrients.

 

Last week, during the Zimbabwe government's 11th Cabinet Meeting, in an effort to reduce government spending, the Ministry of Lands, Agriculture, Water, Climate and Rural Resettlement announced the removal of grain subsidies.

 

These subsidies were introduced in early 2016, following the 2015/16 El Nino induced drought to help farmers increase crop production.

 

As such, when government removed the GMB subsidies grain prices jumped.

 

For maize and soya beans, in particular, prices jumped to RTGS$726 (US$145,20) and RTGS$918 (US$183,60) per tonne from RTGS$250 (US$50) and RTGS$780 (US$156), respectively, as soya meal is derived from the latter.

 

This has resulted in stock feed producers cascading those increases to their products thus affecting livestock farmers’ ability to continue feeding their animals the same levels of stock feed.

 

Currently, according to LMAC, the increase in stock feed prices could affect Zimbabwe’s annual chickens of 91 million birds, 266 000 slaughtered cows and 140 000 pigs.

 

“The stock feeds companies, I meet with them regularly. Like today is Wednesday and I met them on Monday where they brought up a few issues but they did not bring up the issue of pricing unfortunately. But, if certain farmers are complaining about pricing, unfortunately, we cannot regulate what stock feeders will sell into the market in terms of their price,” minister of Lands, Agriculture, Water, Climate and Rural Resettlement Vangelis Peter Haritatos told Panapress.

 

“Remember, we are not a government that will dictate specific prices in that way. All we do is encourage stock feed companies to come to us to tell us their challenges.”

 

 

FIN/INFOSPLUSGABON/MPO/GABON2019

 

 

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