I am Windhoek born but grew up in Johannesburg and being a Seventh Day Adventist we were raised as vegetarians. When I came to Windhoek in 1985, the first thing I noticed is how much meat we eat here. We love our meat in this country because a proper meal or a family gathering always feels incomplete without it (And I fell in love with biltong and droewors). Whether we are buying a quick piece of kapana in Katutura or throwing some meat on the braai with friends, meat is a central part of our daily life. But lately, when you walk into any local butchery or look at the meat in the store, the prices are scary.
The price of red meat has shot up by ten to twenty percent over the past few weeks and many small butcheries are even running out of stock completely. This whole crisis started after the recent foot-and-mouth disease outbreak was confirmed. The government immediately put strict rules in place to stop the movement of cattle to contain the sickness.
Most people look at this situation and think that if meat is hard to find in the shops, then farmers must be making a lot of money right now. But if you talk to the farmers, you will find out that the exact opposite is happening.
There is a huge contradiction in how our meat economy works when a disease outbreak hits us. Just this week, Meatco announced that they are cutting the price they pay to cattle farmers by twenty percent. They cut the producer price from N$76 down to N$61 per kilogramme because our premium export markets overseas have suspended imports until the disease is cleared. Since the big operators cannot export their beef overseas, they are forced to sell it on the local market for much less money.
To make it plain, if the market says the big companies pay the farmer less, the farmer gets less. When a consumer walks into a butchery with N$100, they do not buy the same weight of meat. They just hand over their N$100 note and get less meat or biltong in their plastic bag. The butchery still processes the same N$100 transaction, but they are selling fewer kilogrammes of meat. Because their profit is made from how much weight they sell, and not how much money they get, the owners are making less money while they still have to keep the business running.
This happens because the strict movement bans have disrupted the local supply chains completely. Local butcheries cannot easily source live animals from their usual areas, and the big abattoirs are facing massive bottlenecks. While the price of a whole carcass might be lower at the top, the cost of transporting meat under heavy restrictions and processing specific cuts has gone through the roof. Small informal vendors who sell red meat are being hit the hardest, and many are being forced to close down completely because they cannot get meat or afford the high prices.
We do not want a loose system that allows a dangerous livestock disease to spread across our borders and destroy our agricultural sector. But our regulations must find a better balance so that our domestic food supply does not completely choke whenever an outbreak occurs.
We have to talk about this because it affects not only the farmers and the butchery owners, but also us when we want to buy a simple piece of meat to feed our children or gather around the fire for a weekend braai.
