The Sunday News
Judith Phiri, Business Reporter
THE Livestock and Meat Advisory Council (LMAC) has said abattoirs nationwide are receiving less slaughter stock, as farmers have resorted to rebuilding and growing their livestock herds after a good 2020/21 rainy season.
In an interview with Sunday Business, LMAC administrator Dr Chrispen Sukume said abattoirs have received slightly depressed slaughter stock.
“We have noticed that abattoirs in the country are receiving less slaughter stock and this is likely to remain slightly depressed compared to the other years as farmers rebuild their stocks. We had a good 2020/21 rainy season and there are enough pastures so farmers are taking advantage of this so that they can rebuild and grow their herds,” said Dr Sukume.
He said the previous two years were characterised by severe drought that resulted in large deaths. Dr Sukume said farmers were left with small herds and now it was time for them to grow their herds. However, he said this was affecting abattoirs as few farmers were delivering slaughter stock.
“As farmers work on rebuilding and growing their herds, in the process of restocking they tend to offer less cattle to the market for slaughter. Due to restocking, field reports from members of the Zimbabwe Association of Abattoirs confirmed increasing difficulties in securing slaughter stock from the communal areas,” he said.
Dr Sukume said procurement costs had also gone up, partly because of declining availability as farmers have no pressure to sell due to improved harvests and a shift in currency preferences to protect income values against any potential unexpected inflation and macro-economic instability.
He said the negative impact that was being felt by abattoirs was likely to be prolonged as farmers in rural communities were also keeping their livestock for draught power and for store of value. Dr Sukume said: “They are trying to balance all those different values which they derive from cattle, so it’s not always about them selling. As people are offering less cattle on the market, currently we are experiencing a high demand for chickens.”
He said with less cattle being offered on the market, the price of beef tend to go up, making it cheaper to buy chicken or other types of meat, as witnessed with the demand for chicken or pork.
Dr Sukume said there were some seasonal effects.
“We have taken note of seasonal effects whereby during Christmas period prices of beef go up as more people buy to do family braais, hence slaughter of cattle tend to increase towards the festive season. Then after Christmas people will be trying to save money for school fees, uniforms and other expenses. That’s when we start to see demand for beef and other meat products going down, especially between January and March.”
He said with most farmers restocking, rebuilding and growing their herds, later on supplies of slaughter stock would start to rise.
LMAC in its first quarter report data showed cumulative slaughters at 68 225 during the period, which was two percent below the last quarter of 2020.
Zimbabwe’s abattoirs derive their stock from commercial and semi-commercial smallholder cattle breeders.
The smallholder sector comprise communal farming areas, old resettlement and newly resettled A1 farming sector and accounts for 4,8 million cattle.
The commercial farming sector made up of small to large-scale commercial farmers, inclusive of A2 farm owners, has an estimated herd of 640 000 cattle.
The report said apart from low throughput from farmers, abattoirs had not escaped the effects of hard lockdowns implemented since April 2020 to contain the spread of Covid-19.
“Abattoirs continue to report increasing uncertainty in the business environment driven by Covid-19 related restrictions, currency uncertainty, increased levies and taxes and the outbreaks of diseases like FMD (foot-and-mouth disease) and theileriosis being the major headwinds. Business conditions are expected to remain vulnerable to macroeconomic and policy shocks for the rest of 2021,” read part of the report.
It said the lowest slaughter figure recorded was in January. However, slaughters have since increased.
Slaughter figures for the months February and March were above both the two and five-year average monthly slaughters for February and March, respectively.
LMAC said national distribution of carcass weights were falling, from 120kg to 271kg during the first quarter of 2020 to 165kg to 226kg during the review period. It said the national weighted average carcass was between 184kg and 198kg.
The producer price of super grade increased by 13 percent from $400 to $450 per kg during the period under review, while the producer price of economy grade decreased by one percent to $228 per kg.
During the corresponding period 2020, super and economy grades increased at higher rates.
The report said meat producer prices in United States dollars reflected some level of stabilisation during the period under review.
