Chronicle Editor
Farming issues, Mhlupheki Dube
I RECENTLY attended a livestock auction sale in one rural district and I was left more convinced that more needs to be done to help smallholder livestock farmers to get a fair deal.
While it was presented as an auction and there was an auctioneer conducting the sale, I only saw one buyer even though an impression was given that there was more than one buyer. I might have missed the other buyer(s) if they were tucked somewhere but if there was honestly one buyer, it was therefore, not an auction by strict definition, because an auction has to have more than one buyer so that there is bidding for the commodity on sale.
Most importantly, though I left the sale convinced that more capacity-building needs to be done by Government extension services and its partners to the farmers. I have said it before on this very platform that marketing and market linkage services need to be mainstreamed in Government extension curriculum.
It is pointless to spend years teaching farmers on best production methods only for the farmer to lose at the point when it matters most, selling point. What is the point of investing resources in teaching farmers on how to produce a nice-looking steer which he will sell at below market value? Livestock farmers need to know that there is more “physics” involved when selling your animal, than just hoofing it to the sale pens.
You have to gather market intelligence information first before taking your animal to the pens. Market intelligence information gives you the going beef producer prices. This information is usually readily available from abattoirs for cold dressed prices. You can then work backwards from the cold dressed price (this refers to the price/grade offered by the abattoirs) to get an estimate of the going live weight price.
If this maths is a bit complicated, which is likely to be for most smallholder farmers, the best is to get information from other areas which hold regular livestock auctions so that you get the idea of the going live weight price/kg. I must state here that the live weight price/kg is calculated as an average after the completion of the sale.
It is therefore, not possible to be given a live weight price/kg before the auction starts because in an action buyers bid and the price will land anywhere depending on the robustness of the bidding. I have heard many people asking “what is the price per kg” at the auction pens, that is for you as the seller to calculate which is why there is a scale to give you the weight of the animal so that from the price offered by the auction you can calculate what that translate to, as a price/kg.
Sadly, most sellers do not do this calculation, in fact they won’t even have the calculator at hand. They are only interested in the final figure but not the mathematical meaning of that figure. The other very important issue which farmers should know when they are selling, is that it is your responsibility to bargain and move your price to the point where you are comfortable with the offer. It is not a pleading contest, for goodness’ sake you are not a beggar you are a seller!
Once you go to the market with a mind to beg and sob for a better price, you have set yourself for a definite heartbreak. Buyers can smell desperation and they will feast on you ruthlessly like vultures. Remember whoever is buying your livestock is in business and they would like to maximise profit by buying cheap.
In fact, it is when they are buying that they make profit because they can control the price, which they cannot when they sell to abattoirs! So, if you are to be able to bargain effectively for a good price, besides having market intelligence information which by the way you can get from your nearest extension officer, you need to avoid “spending” your animal before you sell it.
Some livestock farmers have the tendency of going to local shops ahead of the upcoming livestock market and collect items on credit at the promise of paying after the market day.
This sets you up for a desperate sell and reduces your bargaining power because now you have to sell at all costs in order to fulfil your promise to the shop owner. My final advice to the farmers when they want to sell, is to work closely with their extension officer for market intelligence information and benchmarking their animal.
However, I am aware that some of the extension officers are now middlemen, buying themselves and hence they will prey on you or they will inform local runners who are low-capacity buyers and they will come and persuade you with a weak price offer even before the market day. Some extension officers actually get paid by the middlemen buyers for every animal that they link them to.
Uyabonga umntakaMaKhumalo.
Mhlupheki Dube is a livestock specialist and farmer. He writes in his personal capacity.
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