Harare, Zimbabwe (News of the South)-Government is working to regain its traditional beef export markets whilst also looking to penetrate into new markets despite the current challenges facing the sector according to a government official.
Speaking at a validation workshop of a study on the Zimbabwean Beef Industry on Thursday, Minister of Agriculture Mechanisation and Irrigation Development (MAMID) Paddy Zhanda said the beef sector is facing many challenges.
“The sector has been grappling with a myriad of challenges among them, the continued outbreak of Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD), a problem that has significantly destabilized cattle marketing and incessant droughts in the recent past”
“The Ministry has also been struggling to provide adequate resources to its departments particularly the Livestock Production Department (LPD), which is highly under resourced both in terms of financial and human resources”, he said.
Zhanda however said despite these challenges government has made significant strides in some areas.
“We have managed to control FMD epidemic and currently, it is the government’s thrust to build the country’s cattle population and also ensure that farmers are capacitated to increase their productivity”
This will be done through the Special Programme on Livestock Production under Command Livestock.
The Minister commended the Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa led Command programme and said it had managed to bear great results beyond expectations in the 2016/17 agriculture season.
Commercial beef used to be one of the country’s richest assets, earning US$100 million a year, mainly in European exports.
The country however suspended beef exports to the European Union in 2001 after the outbreak of foot and mouth in the main cattle producing southern parts of the country and the ban is yet to be removed 16 years later.
The EU followed by South Africa was the country’s main export market with which it had an agreement for an annual export quota of 5 500 tonnes.
Zimbabwe also exported beef to several Asian and African countries.
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