NAMIBIA – The Bank of Namibia’s director of research and financial sector development, Emma Haiyambo has observed that the biggest challenges facing the country’s agriculture sector is its lack of Halal certification, which blocks Namibia’s meat products from entering the Middle East markets.
Beef production is the life-blood of Namibia’s agriculture and is practised in both commercial and communal farming areas. It constitutes approximately 85 per cent of gross agricultural income, which in turn forms roughly 10 per cent of the gross national product.
Halal certification ensures that meat-processing procedures of exporting countries adhere to Islamic dietary laws to make it acceptable for Muslims to consume those products.
If a product contains animals or animal by-products that are considered haram, then it cannot receive a Halal certification. Any meat must be slaughtered in accordance with the methods prescribed under Islamic law, known as Zabihah.
The significance of Halal certification for exporting meat to Muslim-dominated countries was emphasised during Namibia’s previous exploratory missions to the United Arab Emirates and Qatar.
Haiyambo highlighted a raft of challenges hindering Namibia’s access to the global market during the recent 25th Annual Bank of Namibia Symposium in the capital.
“The lack of Halal certification remains another challenge for our agriculture sector, because now we cannot access other markets such as the Middle East. Our meat is globally renowned, and everyone wants it, but we need to do more to make it accessible to all markets,” she explained.
“So, the Halal certification is one of our key priorities going forward. Other challenges pertaining to trading our agricultural products is lack of access to market for northern farmers, high transportation costs, distance as well as limited external branding initiatives.”
Other key challenges within the livestock sub-sector remain recurring drought and erratic rainfall, which have severe implications for the agricultural sector.
This has been confirmed by Agriculture, water and land reform minister Calle Schlettwein, who said the state-owned entities created to support the agriculture sector have failed to deliver and instead become a burden to farmers.
These include the Meat Corporation of Namibia (Meatco), AgriBusDev, Agro Marketing And Trade Agency (Amta), the Agricultural Bank of Namibia, and the Namibia Industrial Development Agency.
Schlettwein said this while speaking at the 25th Bank of Namibia Annual Symposium, themed ‘Global Value Chains for Inclusive Development: How can Namibia position its Agricultural Sector?’
“Public industrialisation and marketing entities that were created with the correct intent to facilitate an economic transition towards value chain development and industrialisation in the agricultural sector, without exception, failed to deliver,” Schlettwein said.
Food and Agriculture Organisation southern Africa sub-regional coordinator Patrice Takoukam said Namibia can benefit from investing in value-added processing of its agricultural and marine products to increase export earnings and create jobs.
