Botswana secures markets for sheep, goat meat in Saudi Arabia, Norway

President Mokgweetsi Masisi of Botswana on Saturday announced that his country has secured lucrative markets for sheep and goat meat in Saudi Arabia and Norway.

Masisi made the announcement while paying a courtesy call to youthful small stock farmers at Chadibe cluster farms in the outskirts of Francistown, Botswana’s second largest city to encourage these young livestock farmers to feed the nation.

According to Masisi, his visit to the livestock farmers is aimed at motivating and encouraging them to take their small stock farming seriously since “it is a lucrative business.”

“The government has secured markets for sheep and goat meat in Saudi Arabia and Norway and the markets are lucrative. The two countries need at least one million tons of small stock meat annually,” he said.

Botswana could have started exporting small stock meat to the two countries in May this year if it was not for the COVID-19 outbreak, he said.

However, Masisi said the southern African country remains confident that it will start exporting to the two countries in a no distant future.

In 2019, Botswana’s meat processing firm, Botswana Meat Commission (BMC), invited small stock farmers to send their livestock to the company for slaughtering with a view of starting to export the meat to Saudi Arabia and Norway. Enditem