Why goat meat could be next ‘gold’ for Tanzania

Dar es Salaam. Goat meat is rapidly becoming a key export item for Tanzania, thanks to its popularity in the Arab world.
Tanzania’s meat exports have been growing steadily in the past few months, driven mostly by imports of goat meat, also known as chevon, in Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Oman and Kuwait, among other gulf states.

Although in monetary terms, the value of Tanzania’s meat exports remains low, the fact that there has been a steady rise in recent months suggests that if all the relevant factors are further streamlined, the country could get much more from meat – specifically chevon – exports.

Latest data shows that Tanzania’s meat exports rose by 25 percent in September 2022 due to a rise in demand in foreign countries.
Data from the Tanzania Meat Board (TMB) shows that the country’s meat exports reached $3.833 million in September 2022.
This was a massive leap from exports worth $3.048 million in August 2022.

Official data from the Ministry of Livestock and Fisheries Development shows that the total number of cattle in Tanzania stood at 35.3 million as of May 2022. The country was also home to a total of 25.6 million goats during the same period.

Similarly, the sheep population stood at 8.8 million by the end May 2022, while the number of chickens stood at 92.8 million.
TMB registrar Daniel Mushi told The Citizen that goat meat accounts for the lion’s share of the country’s meat exports.

For instance, out of the $3.833 million in meat export earnings in September, goat meat accounted for $2.685 million, up from $2.126 million in August.
Mutton brought in $967,580, beef earned the country $164,725, while $6,069.88 and  $9,908.09 came from poultry and pork, respectively, in September.

Dr Mushi said that in order to protect the meat market, TMB plans  to hold a meeting with the relevant stakeholders to set strategies that aimed at increasing the efficiency of meat traders and breeders.

“We plan to go around Shinyanga, Mwanza, Morogoro and other regions that have livestock in abundance to provide training to breeders to be mindful of breeding principles, and to set strategies to ensure that production continues to increase to protect the meat market both inside and outside the country.”

If breeders follow the rules of breeding, they will see the benefits because livestock will be healthy, and will not die unnecessarily or be stunted, which reduces the quality of meat.
“Goat meat is soft and has a special taste that many people like. You can prepare it in different ways. Its taste is different from beef, goat, chicken, or mutton,” said Dr Mushi, adding that it is also easy to prepare goat meat.

“You can easily prepare it even at the family level. Besides, many people like to prepare it for religious ceremonies.”
Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Oman and Kuwait are the major markets for meat from Tanzania.

According to Dr Mushi, the number of countries interested in importing meat from Tanzania has been on the rise due to improvement in quality.

“In recent years, the meat market has been expanding because of the quality of the meat being exported. Previously, breeders could not observe the rules of breeding such as feed, water, treatment and prevention of diseases as well as keeping livestock in a clean condition,” he said.

The value of the global meat industry was estimated at $897 billion in 2021, and was forecast to increase to $1.354 trillion by 2027.

Chinese market

Having seen that meat exports could actually become a force to reckon with in Tanzania’s export products, the government is working with various companies in an effort to find more markets for the country’s meat products.

One of the companies is Tan Choice Limited, whose business operations manager, Dr Sero Luwongo, said yesterday that in cooperation with the government, they are in talks with China to see how they can cooperate in the meat business.

The company – which operates under the Exports Processing Zones Authority (EPZA) - owns modern slaughterhouses to process goat and sheep meat at Soga in Kibaha District, Coast Region.

“We have written a letter asking for a permit to export our products to China, We are continuing to make a follow up on the permit, but we have not yet received a direct response. However, we have reached a good stage, and we hope we will succeed,” said Dr Luwongo.

He called upon the government to protect markets by enacting laws and regulations that do not change regularly in order to help businesspeople.
He said there are some companies that produce reproductive bulls, expressing that such companies need to be protected to increase reproduction, which should be for two years instead of five.

The government has ordered a cargo plane in order to reduce transport costs and compete in the market.

A stakeholder in meat exports, Mr Frfan Mitha, suggested that the main thing is to look at how to protect existing markets, improve services, become honesty and maintain integrity.

He was of the view that there was no need of finding new markets because the available markets have not been covered.

It was suggested that to improve the available markets there must be the availability of livestock raw materials that will increase the quality of livestock and increase the quality of meat in the available markets.

 “We only have only ten places, where we export meat, so we need to do our best by producing quality products,” said Mr Mitha.