The Meat Board of Namibia has extended a business invitation to Ghana to invest in partnerships for feedlots in the country to boost local value addition.
Namibia and Ghana already have a beef export agreement, with the first consignment of 14 tonnes of beef having landed in the West African country in 2022.
“Namibia is a dry country, as opposed to Ghana with its good rainfall, which can enable you to be a supplier of grain products, hence this hangs as a business opportunity that can be pursued. For us growing grain or fodder locally becomes expensive due to input and production costs, as you may need to use an irrigation system which attracts high electricity tariffs,” said Meat Board Executive for Trade and Strategic Marketing, Goliath Tujendapi.
“Setting up feedlots here is quite important because the absence of that has pushed us into exporting most of our live weaners to South Africa. Therefore, if I was a business person I would partner with producers, and supply them with grain. Only then can we decide that all weaner exports destined for South Africa can be fed here, up to the right standard for slaughtering, then export value-added products to our markets,” he added.
Tujendapi made this call at a meeting with Ghanaian business people, hosted by the Namibia Tourism Board.
He, in the same vein, said Namibia has been finding it difficult to easily export meat products to Ghana as a result of the Halaal law, even though abattoirs are certified.
“It is on such grounds that we also intended to engage in further discussions to also export goats, thereby expanding the market,” he stated.
Under Muslim law, for the meat to be considered Halal certified when slaughtering the word Allah’s (God’s) must be mentioned, whereas the instrument used must be very sharp to ensure cutting the throat and jugular vein, and the animal must be hung upside down and allowed to bleed dry.
Tujendapi also informed the delegation that Namibia was able to penetrate hard to reach lucrative markets, such as the EU, USA, Norway and China, due to its strict disease control and health regulations, including the Farm Assured Namibia Meat Scheme (FAN Meat), in assuring quality standards of the products.
About 85% of Namibia’s livestock meat products are exported.
“The FAN Meat scheme is very important as it enables us to trace the meat product from farm to fork, irrespective of destination. Therefore, if anything defective is picked up from the market anywhere, we are able to locate from where that specific product emanated, hence enabling us to do our inspections,” he stressed.
In addition, he said every producer is required to be registered with the Meat Board for quality assurance purposes.
