On the island of Espiritu Santo, most successful cattle farmers are from the East coast, with reputation from being consistently supplying markets until today, despite difficulties in accessing markets such as poor husbandry production practices, high transport costs and low price incentive. Other areas/communities around Santo (Sanma Province) have considerable numbers of cattle production, however; are partly engaged in industry.
At a glance, one can argue that there is enough cattle to thrive the industry yet the two manufacturing companies based in Santo are still claiming there is shortage in supply of cattle to their meat works. So what issues are there that is limiting supply of the cattle? Are these problems on-farm? Is it about linkages to the market that requires a policy directive? Is it a market intervention? Is it something to do with the existing genetics? Do we need a research study to determine what is needed, how are we going to address these issues, who will be involved and or what collaborations is there that requires a multi-sectoral approach? These and more questions are needed to raise the need to integrate the supply chain of smallholder beef to commercial markets.
Looking back over the years, the commercial cattle industry has enjoyed maximum benefits and has made a reputation of itself, still, that image has been tainted with export of live cattle, decrease in cattle production resulting in one major manufacturing meat works in Santo to downsize its capacity due to shortage of cattle supply. This is also true for the new manufacturing meat works who currently is employing a smallholder beef cattle scheme to encourage smallholders to raise more beef cattle.
It is about high time the Goverment of Vanuatu (GoV) through the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries, Forestry and Biosecurity (MALFFB) and the Ministry of Trade, Toursim, Cooperative and Ni-Vanuatu Business (MTTCNVB) work together to address any given issues, whether on-farm, market linkages, policy directives or genetics, to better integrate the supply chain of smallholder beef to the commercial market.
There is talks of a Smallholder Beef project underway aimed at improving the supply chain of smallholder beef to the commercial market coordinated by the two ministeries MTTCNVB and MALFFB.
(Source: www.malffb.gov.vu)
For the future, there is hope again that smallholders will once again enjoy the benefits of the commercial beef cattle industry and re-live its so called "glory days" dubbed as one of the best quality beef in the world. www.malffb.gov.vu
