Q1 cattle slaughters increase 9pc

Agriculture Specialist Writer

GOVERNMENT’S call on farmers to sell unproductive livestock units and secure feeds for the productive ones has seen cattle slaughters rising by nine percent from 87 000 to 95 000 in the first quarter of 2024.

The call comes on the backdrop of the 2023/24 farming season being ruined by an El Nino-inspired drought ranked as the worst the country has experienced in 43 years with crop production dropping by 77 percent compared to the previous season.

Proceeds generated from the sale of unproductive cattle is meant to be used for purchasing feed to save productive animals such as those for breeding, heifers, cows and draught power.

Statistics released by the Livestock and Meat Advisory Council (LMAC) show that cattle slaughters rose from 87 000 from January to March last year to 95 000 in the comparable period this year.

LMAC executive administrator, Dr Reneth Mano said the first quarter had seen a nine percent surge in total cattle slaughters going through monitored abattoirs.

“However, on a worrying note, there has been a noticeable shift towards selling cattle under toll slaughter arrangements and from informal premises, as unregistered buyers and farmers avoid paying the new taxes introduced by Government early this year.

“The Government introduced a presumptive tax of 30 percent, a 15 percent value added tax (VAT) on sale of live animal, 15 percent VAT on wholesale of beef and offal to customers without VAT numbers, as well as a six percent presumptive tax for city licensed small and medium (SME) butcheries without tax clearance,” he said.

The increase in toll slaughtering has produced two negatives: lowered income tax base for Government and informalised the cattle marketing system.

The 2024 second-round crop, livestock and fisheries assessment report (CLAFA-2) shows that beef cattle offtake increased from eight percent in 2022 to 10 percent in 2023.

The CLAFA-2 report said the highest off-take of 14 percent was reported in the large-scale commercial farming (LSCF) sector with the lowest off-take of seven percent reported in the communal sector.

Dr Mano said unfortunately the strong positive developments in 2023 will be subdued in the large-and medium-scale commercial cattle rearing and trading sector due to high taxes.

“While intentions of this new fiscal policy measures were good, better planning and joint outreach and educational campaigns by Ministries of Agriculture and Finance and rural district councils (RDCs) would have mobilised more emerging medium and large-scale newly resettled indigenous commercial cattle farmers to get registered with the Zimbabwe Revenue Authority (Zimra) for proper farm net income tax assessment.

“The medium to large-scale commercial cattle production sector enjoyed a boost, as more non-traditional investors continued to diversify their portfolios into short-term purchase of weaners and mature cattle from the cattle auctions and from smallholder to finishing and selling fattened slaughter beef cattle farmers,” he added.

Dr Mano pointed out that in 2023 there was a surge in trading activities at major cattle auctions, which saw large/medium-scale farmers getting very good auction prices in a sellers’ market. The increased activity at the live cattle auctions significantly improved the efficiency of the price discovery mechanism for Zimbabwe’s productive live cattle unlocking value for all cattle farmers across Zimbabwe.

Ordinarily, Zimbabwean urban consumers have an expressed demand for about 60 000 tonnes of beef or 370 000 live beasts of mostly economy and commercial grades of slaughter cattle per year provided beef retail price is within US$4, 50 to US$6, 50 per kilogramme, Dr Mano added.

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