Agriculture Minister Calle Schlettwein has challenged the Meat Corporation of Namibia (Meatco) and the Agro-Marketing and Trade Agency (AMTA) to ramp up production and unlock market access for small-scale farmers.
This comes as the two national entities are struggling, with Meatco recently announcing a loss of N$206 million, at the backdrop of a two-year revenue drop from N$1.7 billion to N$752 million.
At the same time, AMTA has been failing to meet its target of mostly serving and purchasing products from small-scale farmers.
“Underperformance of key institutions in the sector needs to be urgently addressed in order to realise value and serve farmers better. This is in specific reference to Meatco’s business sustainability and its market outreach to all the farmers, particularly in the Northern Communal Areas (NCAs) and AMTA’s role to better support increasing market access for agronomic and horticulture products, particularly for small holders,” he said at the launch of the Livestock and Agricultural Production Output.
He added that the livestock sub-sector, which is the mainstay for the majority of farmers, enjoys market access to the best paying markets globally and on the continent.
Schlettwein feels the existence of this excess market demand is a favourable opportunity to improve domestic livestock productive capacity and to transform the sub-sector from a producer of raw materials and an importer of finished meat products by servicing these best paying markets with finished or intermediary goods.
“This requires that registered abattoirs are put into productive use, value chain industries such as tanneries are harnessed, animal vaccines and medicines are, where possible locally produced, veterinary services are efficiently provided and the public sector institutional capacity is improved to serve the sector better,” he implored the participants.
“Last week, a proposition for an agricultural chamber was put forth, borne out of the 2020 Agriculture Conference at which all stakeholders gathered here unanimously passed a resolution to form a representative Chamber of Agriculture. Regrettably, the Chamber architecture put forth has come without all the necessary inclusivity,” he said, and also provided some insights on how the sector can improve and flourish.
“We can only be more inclusive if unity in diversity is the common ground for our actions going forward.”
The outlook conference cornered its discussions on how to revitalise agriculture as a priority sector for inclusive growth, food self-sufficiency and security, an anchor for economic progression and social transformation over the long term.
It also aims to deliberate on investment in water generation, distribution and effective policy reprioritisation, as well as the review of land reform and resettlement policies.
The Minister said land reform remains at the centre of correcting a hitherto skew land ownership that was used by unjust colonial land dispossession of black Namibians by the colonial regimes.
“A land reform aiming at eroding the existing skewness in land ownership coupled with a resettlement policy that ensures productivity on resettlement farms is an absolute necessity. We believe that a performance management evaluation needs to be introduced into resettlement so that it is ensured that those who benefit from it are indeed utilising the productive capacities of the land optimally,” he suggested.
