Carcass grading: How protected are the farmers?

15 Feb, 2015 - 00:02 0 Views
Carcass grading: How protected are the farmers?

The Sunday News

IN one of the feedlot inception discussion with farmers at Ngondoma in Kwekwe one farmer asked questions which can be easily dismissed as coming from a paranoid and sceptical doomsayer. However, after giving it a critical thought one is bound to ask the same questions that were asked by the farmer. After explaining the whole process of feedloting and eventually the marketing of animals as well as the slaughtering in abattoirs, the dressing percentage and the carcass grading before payments based on carcass weight and grade, one farmer asked questions to the effect that are there chances of externally induced manipulations on the outcome of carcass grades.

In his words he said: “We are living in a corrupt country so how do I know that what I get as my grades for my carcasses is exactly what they are?
Are there no chances that someone can be paid to down grade my animals?”

Obviously we had to do our best to allay his fears but that is not to say his questions were without merit.
We are living in an endemically corrupt society to the extent that we have internalised corruption and become so complicit and completely cowed by the scourge that we are so willing to do nothing about it to the extent that the people in major cities witness police officers soliciting and receiving bribes from commuter omnibuses along roads leading into the central business district and do absolutely nothing.

It is therefore proper and in good place to ask the same question, to say how immune are the meat graders to the dictates and manipulations of the outside world?

It is a public secret that the livestock industry is littered with crooks and swindlers right from the village to some of the big players in town.
Many allegations have been levelled against graders being bribed by farmers to grade their animals up, to prejudice the buyer.

There have also been claims of abattoirs and butchers receiving bribes to down grade farmers’ animals to the benefit of these operators.
These are obviously unproven allegations but as they say, it just doesn’t smoke with no fire.

At one time or another I have also been made to silently ask myself the same question about how really autonomous are the graders.
In one instant I witnessed some farmers from a feedlot elsewhere receiving suspicious grades for their animals which in my well-considered view should have gotten better grades.

I am not a trained meat grader but I cannot be brushed aside for a layman.
I know what is considered when carcasses are being graded, such things as its age which is verified using dentition, sex, fat cover, ossification of the vertebral bones and such indicators.

My point therefore is regulatory bodies or authorities need to tighten systems on this part of the livestock value chain if anything in protection of the farmer who is exposed to all kinds of swindling and cheating right from the village.

Also just for the sake of keeping integrity within this very important sector of our agriculture, the system should not just focus on the meat graders but all possible points of manipulations, for example some buyers are alleged to tamper with calibrations of the weighing facilities so that a farmer’s animal weighs less than what it actually does.

I am aware that there are regulatory bodies controlling such things but how often do they check the weighing scales for example.
How well protected are our smallholder farmers from this?
Feedback: [email protected] cell 0772851275

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