At the 2024 Mzansi Young Farmers Indaba, currently underway in Pretoria, a panel led by Agbiz chief economist Wandile Sihlobo delved into the red meat industry, spotlighting avenues to expand. Dewald Olivier, CEO of Red Meat Industry Services (RMIS), stressed the need to boost participation among livestock farmers, particularly by creating space for emerging and small-scale players.
This discussion also scrutinised critical aspects such as animal health, traceability systems, and strategies to bolster the meat export market. Olivier emphasised that most farmers in South Africa were livestock farmers, so they need to look at ways to increase participation within the red meat industry.
Supporting young and small-scale farmers
“We want to grow the number of participants, but we are not going to grow that by just trying to increase the amount of winner costs that we get from the commercial segment,” Olivier said.
“We need to look at the emerging, small-scale farmers, the young farmers coming in, and create specific space for them to deliver a commercially usable animal within our value chain.
“Additionally, opening up markets and saying how do we include these small-scale farmers by bringing them to a specific standard, having their animals ready for slaughter, and exporting them.”
Special advisor to minister Thoko Didiza, Dr Sifiso Ntombela, a celebrated economist, emphasised the need for the agriculture sector to create export opportunities benefiting young people. He explained that the government was reviewing industrial and competition policies to implement them effectively and foster youth opportunities.
“Today, what we used was our competition policy. However, last year we just unlocked great potential not only to participate in the magnitude but also to export, where we ensured a facility that enables small-scale farmers, subsistence farmers, and semi-commercial farmers to partner with the large-scale commercial farmers.
“For farmers still outside the market, our advice will be [to] know what you feed the animals, and know the identity of the animal. It is not just about ensuring that you have ownership of that animal, but you have to be able to trade should there be any challenges along the value chain to trace it back to that specific farm,” he said.
Demand for high-value red meat products
Speaking about what is happening with the meat export industry globally, commodity markets and foresight analyst Khani Baloyi added that there has been more demand for high-value red meat products.
“If you look at South African exporting, there is now a demand for higher-value boneless products, whether they are fresh, chilled, or frozen. So there is a higher demand for the quality of the product, and not only are they satisfied with just the quality, but they want proof of it,” Baloyi said.
According to Baloyi, traceability is becoming more of an important issue where if a farmer wants to export, they should pay great attention.
She concluded that countries that do not have health management for animal exports, tend to lose markets until they solve those quality issues. The quality of the product is what is expected, whether it meets the right standard, and secondly, the safety of the product.
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