Namibia is looking at securing alternative markets for its meat and related products, amid suspension by major markets due to the recent outbreak of Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD).
The Livestock and Livestock Products Board of Namibia's marketing manager, Desmond Cloete, said the country is searching for markets that will allow the export of Namibia's meat under the country's current FMD status.
Cloete was addressing a community meeting convened by the Rehoboth Community Trust to discuss the implications of FMD on the farming communities and affiliated industries at Rehoboth.
He said securing an alternative market is crucial for the survival of the meat value chain and to restore the ailing economic prospects of affiliated industries and sectors.
"So we sit with suspended status, and we are hard at work to secure new markets, more FMD-equivalent markets that will allow us, with our current status, to enter those markets on the continent where we are looking at those markets that are not oversensitive to our current status that will allow us to export because we need to get those markets as soon as possible."
Cloete noted that various markets are currently being explored for this purpose.
Livestock and livestock products board of Namibia's Manager of Farm Assured Namibia Meat Victor Klazen, used the event to emphasise the importance of biosecurity on farms.
"Basically, if it protects the farmers' animals' wellbeing in terms of ensuring that these animals are not exposed to diseases, then it takes into consideration the current outbreak of FMD in the south of the country, and farmers need to have biosecurity on their farms. They need to make sure that people entering their farms are disinfected, and vehicles entering their farm and exiting the farms are disinfected, and this is protecting their animal health status on his or her farm."
Farmers at the meeting raised concern about the rising cost of maintaining livestock which do not yield any returns due to marketing restrictions. One such farmer, Karl Fish, said they are barely surviving in terms of their farming operations.
"It's very difficult for all the farmers in all the regions in terms of this, so we can't move animals, so we can't move meat products, so we don't have income, so anything that happens at the farms comes from our pockets, and we have to borrow money from the banks with big interest in terms of survival for the future."