SUMMARY

Portfolio Lake Zone -Tanzania

CONNECTING THE MWANZA CONNECTING THE MWANZA CONNECTING THE MWANZA CONNECTING THE MWANZA

RED MEAT VALUE CHAINRED MEAT VALUE CHAINRED MEAT VALUE CHAINRED MEAT VALUE CHAIN

From farm to fork, the processing of red meat in Mwanza, Tanzania’s 2nd

largest city, faces inter-connected challenges. The red meat value chain in

Mwanza relies on intertwined systems of formal and informal processes that

interdependently employ thousands - while realizing gain for very few.

Ensuring quality red meat is produced in Mwanza begins by ensuring that

quality cattle enter the city’s value chain. However, while the lake zone region

is host to a high number of quality cows, farmers are often discouraged to

supply prime cattle to Mwanza’s livestock markets.

Cattle sales are often dictated by a series of middlemen that purchase animals

directly from the farm at bargain prices so as to ensure high trader profits.

While traders maintain their market savvy via mobile phone communication

with markets countrywide, cattle producers are often unaware of where

markets are even located – far less the actual value of a single head in their

herd. As a result, farmers choose to sell cows of that are in poor health,

underweight, and old in age (to allow for the maximum production of calves).

These weakened cattle enter Mwanza meat processing and handling facilities

that suffer the consequences of decades of minimal maintenance investments.

In an environment where hygienic meat processing is nearly impossible to

achieve, product quality is further compromised during high stress animal

handling and minimal animal and meat inspection in the Mwanza abattoir.

Pick-up trucks, motorcycles, bicycle all act as means to transport meat

throughout the city to the hundreds of local butcheries dotting Mwanza’s

landscape. However, formal or informal, butcheries uniformly lack electricity

(and hence refrigeration), possess little access to water, and confront a

regulatory and economic climate that makes improvement nearly impossible to

achieve.

In this scenario conditions, practices and relationships are universally strained

amongst those struggling to make a daily living in the Mwanza red meat sector.

In building positive connections amongst value chain actors, SNV Lake

Zone organised a “Swammersion” event aimed at joining expertise from various

stakeholders in advancing the red meat trade in Mwanza City.

Listening and Sharing - page 2

Cornering the Market - page 3

Abattoir: Organized Chaos - page 4

A loss making cow - page 4

Formal versus Informal - page 5

One link at the time - page 6

IN THIS BRIEF SNV LAKE ZONE

Red Meat Value ChainRed Meat Value ChainRed Meat Value Chain Red Meat Value Chain

Connecting the Mwanza Red Meat Value Chain

Diagram 1. The Red

Meat Value Chain as

presently operating in

Mwanza City

Taken from:

In the Red - Synthesis

Report of Hygienic and

Economic Capacity

within Mwanza City

Red Meat Value Chain

(RMVC) Infrastructure

by TSAEE (Tanzania

Society of Agricultural

Extension and

Education)

2011

The Mwanza Red Meat Value Chain consists of four

main components that operate within the city

boundaries of Ilemela and Nyamangana Districts and

managed by the Mwanza City Council. These are the

secondary cattle market, the City’s abattoir,

transporters and meat outlets. All actors within these

areas operate inter-dependently to earn their

livelihoods and move meat from the field to the plate.

Through extensive interviews amongst actors and

stakeholders it is evident that the actual function of

the industry is dependent upon numerous outflows to

informal and external market avenues. Mapping of the

value chain (see the diagram below) has revealed

THE MWANZA RED MEAT VALUE CHAIN

significant issues in accountability amongst public and

private sector actors that contribute to the fractured

status of the value chain. These include; (1) Inefficient

centralized arrangement of infrastructure, (2)

Ineffective management to maintain adequate levy

collection and ensure minimal product quality and (3)

Lack of ability to supply red meat of sufficient quality.

These circumstances in value chain management by

the Mwanza City Council have increasingly acted to

degrade product quality while creating a non-

conducive environment to formal market participation

by value chain stakeholders.

LISTENING AND SHARING

This “swammersion” event was developed by SNV Lake Zone staff and

combines the elements of earlier exercises undertaken in other sectors.

The swarming process is a rapid multi-disciplinary inquiry into an issue

within a sector, while immersion is intended to allow individuals to

directly engage in the day to day lives of local people.

The main objectives of the exercise were to: (1) clarify and validate key

issues within value chain and linkages between actors, (2) identify

strategic processes and priorities for the next phase and (3) gain in-

depth perspective of key processes. Seven teams were assembled and

each given an specific focus (e.g. cattle trading). Nearly 50 participants

were encouraged to participate in the red meat process in order to gain

intimate knowledge of the sector and discuss solutions. The exercise

took place between 24-26 August 2011.

Page 2

Members of a Swammersion team

discussing cattle prices with a trader

at Igoma secondary market.

SNV Tanzania - Lake Zone

The outlook on life of a cattle farmer, whether rural or

on semi-rural peripheries of Mwanza City, can be

called traditional. Children are often taken from

school to herd cattle and the sale of livestock is mostly

decided by men. Farmers prefer to use traditional

medicine to treat cows in case of disease as getting

assistance from veterinary professionals can be

tedious and costly. While livestock theft (and mob

justice) is a common problem, the rapid growth of

Mwanza causes loss of an entirely different nature –

available grazing land.

Teams in the field visited three cattle keeping

households in the Mwanza area. These cattle farmers

tend to keep an average of 20 cows of which 3 are sold

annually in order to earn, at best, 300,000 TZS per

cow. However, farmers describe livestock markets as

remote, troublesome and expensive to access. As a

result, they tend to rely on local cattle vendors, who

can purchase cows at prices as low as 80,000 TZS.

More than generating income, cattle are often sold

due to their poor health or old age so as to remove

weak head from the herd. From a farmer perspective,

it’s better to sell an older cow so as to ensure the

production of as many calves as possible.

Page 3

Veterinary inspection was virtually invisible despite

the sale of obviously weak animals.

The system of trading is dictated by a long line of

cattle traders that discourage the use of transparent

sytems such as auctioning. This has brought

discouragement to cattle keepers, who have been

reluctant to bring cattle to the primary markets. While

the traders use their mobile phones to get current

livestock prices in Arusha and Dar es Salaam, livestock

keepers are deprived of this information. Farmers’

organizations who could give farmers such information

are few and are yet to organize this. Buyers and sellers

at the markets could also benefit from the accessibility

to livestock weighbridges, which are not operational at

the moment. This would help buyers and sellers to

come to a fairer price of livestock.

Cattle fatteners were visited in the Igoma area, where

also the secondary cattle market is situated. Most of

their cattle are being fed maize or sorghum stalks,

supplemented by cotton cake, which is readily

available as cotton is a cash crop in the Lake Zone.

Most fattened cattle end up in Dar es Salaam or

Comoros to fetch prices as high as 1 million shillings.

CORNERING THE MARKETS

In Tanzania marketing of cattle normally goes through

two markets. Primary Markets should be the place

where producers bring their livestock to be sold to

traders and the secondary market is where cattle is

resold to butchers and exporters. The two teams that

visited these markets came to the conclusion that

both types of markets operate with little to no

management. Fee collection, essential to maintaining

upkeep of facilities, was often sporadic and non-

reflective of the actual volume of on-site sales.

SECURITY IN NUMBERS

Cattle at Igoma Secondary Market waiting to be taken to the abbatoir

ORGANIZED CHAOS

During the final plenary session heated discussions

took place between the participants on the question if

Mwanza produces quality meat. Many agreed that the

cattle of the Lake Zone region are of high quality, but

the slaughtering and meat processing is below

acceptable standards. Some argued that Mwanza in

spite of these shortcomings still produces meat of high

standard. However, teams in the field found that

cattle making their way towards the Mwanza abattoir

were generally of poor condition and in an overall

weakened state.

Travelling by hoof from rural markets to overcrowded

holding pens with limited water and feed, cattle spend

their final days in a high degree of stress that

adversely affects the quality of meat. With unused

cattle corridors and stun boxes, this stress continues

as cows are dragged backwards to await the fate of a

slit throat amongst the dozens of carcasses strewn

about the single room of the Mwanza abattoir.

While security is officially described as “tight”, the

abattoir has no perimeter fence to restrict access by

unauthorised people.

(Continued on page 4)

Page 4

FEELING THE CUT

Butchers in Mwanza

City are often per-

ceived as the party

gaining the greatest cut

of the profits. One

team spent two days

following a butcher

from the purchase of a

cow at the secondary

market to delivery of

meat to his butcher

shop. This required

from the butcher nu-

merous small invest-

ments that cumula-

tively contribute to a

very low profit margin.

of 5.28%. This leaves

little room for error in

everyday business

practices and some-

thing as routine as a

liver failing inspection

or underestimating cat-

tle weight (can elimi-

nate a day’s profit al-

together.

Profitability for a

butcher is further chal-

lenged when it is con-

sidered that products

and by-products from their purchased cow (such as

feet, heads, tongues and blood) make their way to in-

formal avenues of sale and realize 100% profit for oth-

ers.

After joining the butcher and reviewing the records, it

realized that after investing a full day in purchasing a

cow, ensuring its passage through the local abattoir

and finally getting the meat to his stall - it made a

loss!

COMMUNITY SLAUGHTERING

AND SLABS

Given less than desirable conditions at the Mwanza

abattoir, locals commonly described to teams in the

field that slaughtering takes place daily in unrecorded

locations. Although considered illegal, due to the lack

of veterinary officer oversight, cattle are often killed in

places ranging from under trees to backyards and

garages.

An alternative employed in rural communities in the

use of slaughter slabs - an open air concrete surface

that serves to act as a small scale abattoir. Within the

more rural outskirts of Mwanza’s boundaries there are

2 slabs located at Igombe and Kayenze. Here an

average of five animals per day are slaughtered under

basic conditions, but with veterinary supervision.

Teams in the field were surprised to see slabs visited

only a month earlier to have undergone substantial

upgrading with expansions to the slaughtering area

and the addition of a roof.

Profit/Loss Account of the followed

cow from market to butcher.

It is estimated that upwards of 70 people, of varying

degrees of formal employment, are inside the

slaughtering hall at any given time. The skinning,

gutting and cutting of the carcass takes place in a

single spot (no line passing is employed) by a lone

cutters paid by butchers to process a minimum of 3

cattle.

Apart from the butchers and their cutters there are

cattle handlers, skinners, stomach and intestine

cleaners, collectors of by-products (hides, skulls,

hooves and blood), butcher owners, traders and

inspectors. The common requirement for their

presence in the slaughter hall is simply a white coat -

blood free or not withstanding.

Meat inspection at the abattoir is basic with only

applying clinical vision and no access to scientific

equipment to undertake other tests. No proper rooms

are in operation to dispose of rejected meat and

conflicting roles amongst minimal staff undermine on

site authority for enforcing inspection standards. The

situation in the abattoir can be best described as

organised chaos.

(Continued from page 3)

Chaotic scenes at Mwanza abattoir

Connecting the Mwanza Red Meat Value Chain

Page 5

FORMAL TIES

From the abattoir, red meat continues in many

directions and means to Mwanza consumers. Some

meat finds its way to butchers and institutions within

the covered receptacles of MCC’s licensed meat vans

and motorbikes. Other meat, largely directed to the

informal sector, travels unofficially by a multitude of

methods from wheelbarrows and buckets to bicycles

and bags. All meat travels unrefrigerated and the

purchased carcasses and intestines (along with

associated bacteria) from multiple butchers are rarely

separated.

Most meat ends up at one of the hundreds of local

butcher stalls in Mwanza. Here, it is displayed in open

air as refrigeration is a rare and costly luxury.

Although standards have been set by the Central

government for butchers (such as tiled surfaces,

running water, and screened doors/windows), they

are seldom all present. Municipal health officials are

empowered to close butchers, but this is rarely done

as non-adherence to all by-laws is uniform amongst

almost every local butcher in operation.

Organizations such as the Mwanza City Butchers

Association (MWACIBA) have attempted to set

minimum prices in order to secure profits significant

enough to improve their butcheries. However, it was

found that price controls were often undermined by

non-members. A challenge for MWACIBA members

has become how to increase their share of the market

without increasing cost burdens to consumers.

The high end of the red meat market is dominated by

only a few players, mainly in the central part of

Mwanza city. These modern butchers operate with

proper refrigeration and improved handling and

Open display of meat and intestines at a sub-standard butcher

The informal red meat sector should not be

underestimated in scale and extent. Informal

processes, from selling to slaughtering to sales, are

conservatively estimated to account for greater than

60% of the Mwanza red meat trade. This was further

confirmed amongst teams in the field as all parties

regularly encountered informal operators delivering

services at every point of the Mwanza red meat value

chain.

While providing a source of livelihood for a multitude

of large and small operators, the informal sector

additionally supplies affordable meat to hundreds of

thousands of consumers on a daily basis. While

quality control is viewed as limited in informal

operations, to many in Mwanza their level of service

and product delivery is seen as similar to that of their

formal counterparts.

Pieces of

stomach for sale

at a stall at

Igoma market.

INFORMAL REALITIES

A cooking lady

buying meat scraps

of a hoof from a

vendor, who has

acquired hooves

from the

abattoir.

Uncooked meat mixed with

grilled pieces. Basic

knowledge of proper meat

handling is unknown to

those working in the

sector.

SNV Tanzania - Lake Zone

cutting of meat. Despite securing their product from

the same (poor standard) abattoir as local butchers,

these modern operations have been able to capture a

growing number of customers willing to pay

significantly higher meat prices – as much as double or

triple that of local butchers.

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The red meat Swammersion enabled stakeholders to fully endorse value

chain processes and losses occurring in Mwanza red meat service

delivery. Further, the multi-disciplinary nature of the Swammersion

clarified and identified key points of economic loss in the value chain.

Key stakeholder findings included:

• Major actors at each end of the value chain, namely farmers and

butchers, gain the least of the value chain’s profits

• Farmers possess almost no influence and rarely participate in formal

livestock markets

• Cattle traders and meat transporters gain the most of the chain’s

profits while contributing the least to value addition

• Informal red meat operators are securing profits great enough to

actively provide loans to their formal value chain counterparts

• More value on a cow is lost due to payments for a multitude of

formal and informal actors to deliver substandard slaughtering than

what can be contributed to poor handling at the abattoir

• Government presence is limited and unable to play an effective role

as a facilitator connecting the links in the value chain

The Swammersion process was regarded by participants as an effective

means of fostering professional connections while increasing joint

understanding and opportunity for action in red meat improvement

amongst red meat stakeholders.

Key stakeholder connections included:

• Teams in the field linking the Mwanza City Director to central

government plans for relocation of the Mwanza secondary market to

neighbouring Misungwi District. The coming change was previously

not detailed to the City Director and was communicated to prepare

for a potential shortage of red meat in Mwanza.

• Public Health officials in Mwanza now being aware of the existence

and role of the Mwanza City Butchers Association as an educating

organization for butcher owners and staff. Public Health has

indicated that MWACIBA can serve as an important partner for red

meat improvement.

• Mwanza butchers participating in the Swammersion requesting

greater linkages to rural slaughter slabs as managed by MCC.

Amongst all participating value chain stakeholders, agreement was had

as to the urgent need for cooperatively improving red meat in Mwanza

city. In bringing together a diverse spectrum of stakeholders, a practical

experience in knowledge sharing for improved red meat was achieved by

connecting the many links of the Mwanza Red Meat Value Chain.

ONE LINK AT A TIME

SNV Lake Zone Portfolio P.O. Box 11290 Mwanza - Tanzania Tel: +255.28.2500130

email: rvanklinken@snvworld.org

Web: www.snvworld.org

This is a briefing paper prepared by Josh Sebastian, SNV Young professional and

leading author of the report ‘In the Red’. For more information please contact Josh

Sebastian at sebastianjb@live.ca or Rinus van Klinken, Portfolio Coordinator at

rvanklinken@snvworld.org.

Date of publicat ion: 20th October 2011

Checking out the informal meat trade

Tough questions for a health official

Improved slab under construction at Kayenze

Connecting the Mwanza Red Meat Value Chain