Commercial farmers who implement traceability systems and help raise the formal red meat sector to a higher standard will ultimately force the government to put regulations or legislation in place to control stray animals or neglected municipal animals.
By Alani Janeke, Senior Journalist at African Farming and Landbouweekblad
Speakers who participated in a panel discussion at the annual meeting of the Red Meat Producers Organisation (RPO) at Nampo Cape agree that the use of traceability systems by commercial farmers will ultimately force the government to enforce traceability through regulations or legislation.
Pierre Vlok, regional manager of BKB, was the discussion leader. The participants were Louw van Reenen, executive chairman of the Beefmaster Group, Dian Giliomee, director of Overberg Meat & Hessequa Meat, and Jaco van der Berg, chairman of the RPO in the Western Cape.
The speakers were unanimous in their opinion that such a step by the government will force livestock owners in the informal sector to also participate in traceability to enjoy its benefits and possibly solve the problem with stray animals around towns and cities.
Gert Agenbach, vice-chairman of the RPO in the Western Cape, also believes this will end the problem wFMDith agents who buy animals cheaply from municipal farmers and sell them at auctions, thereby spreading diseases.
Giliomee believes that producers must insist on traceability. “We have nothing to hide. Buyers will increasingly not buy from producers without traceability. The producer on his farm benefits greatly from it, while it also fosters confidence among consumers. It’s actually difficult to understand why everyone isn’t applying it yet.”
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R12 billion in farmers’ pockets?
Van Reenen said the Beefmaster Group has not been buying cattle from producers who don’t apply traceability for many years. “We also use our system for disease control. We increasingly use technology, including counting cattle with drones and checking them in the field. By simply noticing via the drones that an animal isn’t eating or drinking, we can already identify when an animal is going to get sick before it becomes sick.”
He regularly works with the Bureau for Food and Agricultural Policy (BFAP) to make calculations using data and economic information. “In one such calculation, we determined that if we can get our beef and lamb exports to 20%, you give farmers R12 billion back in their pockets, but then traceability is necessary to achieve a premium for the farmer’s product.”
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“Traceability will be non-negotiable in the future – it’s nonsensical to resist it. Farmers in North America are also having the same conversation we’re having here. Some farmers, however, say they don’t want to participate because they don’t want to give their data to the government. That’s not why these systems exist.”
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‘Don’t get stuck on the costs’
Van der Berg encourages farmers not to focus only on the costs of such a system. “It won’t be the biggest cost on your books, and with all the information that such a system makes available to you, you’re able to manage your input costs down. When you think about this investment, you need to think long term.”
“Farmers are going to become increasingly irritated with each other if there isn’t traceability.”
He said it is now the farmers’ responsibility to act at the grassroots level, and it is essential to stand together so that better markets can be negotiated for them.
“If we had good traceability and biosecurity, the impact of the current foot-and-mouth disease outbreak wouldn’t have been nearly as bad and the uncertainty not so high.”
Van der Berg invested in such a system as he farms on the border of the Western and Eastern Cape, and there was an outbreak of this disease in the Eastern Cape in 2024.
