Speaking Wednesday in Gaborone at the Botswana Pork Chain Analysis study release, Mbaiwa said the pork industry is vulnerable to economic instability due to its dependence on the tourism sector.He noted that it is also riddled with high feed costs and low feed quality from local suppliers. "We need to put up a national abattoir for pig farmers and a processing plant - the convenient place is Gaborone looking at the population and market access," he said.
"The big market for pork are hotels and lodges but the transitional route to these markets is the retail sector. The carcass has more market value but the hotels which are the greatest market do not have the processing machinery, only retailers have processing machinery," he said. Mbaiwa highlighted that this is a challenge to the sector because hotels, which contribute 60 percent to the market, can only buy from retailers, which make 10 percent of the market share.Masego Gwaila-Madanika, director of research and development at LEA revealed that a study the authority undertook pegged the demand for pork at 100 million tonnes in 2010 while that for beef stood at 60 million tonnes.Pork imports for the year 2008-2009 was 952 million tonnes while production was 447 million tonnes, and during that period the industry made P42.5 million profit.
