Beef wholesale prices in Dar es Salaam have gone down by an average of 20 per cent per various grades as the supply of cattle also slid at the Pugu market.The wholesale price dropped to between 4,000/- and 4,500/- on Monday compared to 5,000 and 5,500/- in January as keepers were rushing to sell their cattle because of looming drought.
A wholesale trader at Vingunguti’s slaughter house, Mr Christopher Mik, said on Monday that livestock keepers want to fetch good prices before a market glut as most of feeding areas received poor rains in January.
“Farmers want to get good price before it is late as the season rain are not promising while family obligations sticks,” Mr Mika said.
He said cattle keepers calculated risks in advance thus selling their animal earlier to avoid losses as the results of poor rains that reduce not only feeding grounds but also animal drinking water.
Mr Mika said that despite the 20 per cent drop wholesale price for beef, the retail price on average fall marginally by 500/- from 6,500/-. The highest price was in January when it skyrocketed to 7,000/- a kilo.
“Mostly are complaining of high running costs of butchers as the reason to lower price slightly,” Mr Mika said. However, industry sources said, butchers are benefiting from the demand and market mismatch information.
Statistics from Ministry of Industry and Trade shows cattle price at Pugu Market in last week dropped by between 1.0 and 4.0 per cent for both Tzebu grade G2 and G3.
The report shows that female G3 slide by 1.8 per cent to 437,000/- cattle compared to the previous week while male G3 also dropped by 3.1 per cent to 775,000/- heads. Male G3 and female G2 price remain unchanged, stagnated at 450,000/- and 670,000/- respectively.
However, on average the supply at Pugu increase by 4.5 per cent from 603 to 630 cattle in a weekly basis. In goat market supply has increased by almost 16 per cent to 204 heads while on sheep dropped by almost 27 per cent to 94.
The supply increase for goat pushed down the prices to between 5.0 per cent and 15 per cent thus registering a drop of between 55,000/- and 150,000/- per head.
“Though we have started to see prices pick up during the weekend as Easter is around the corner,” Mr William Mwalyema a goat trader at Pugu Market said on Monday.
Mr Mwalyema said the prices went down in the last two months because keepers are forecasting a poor rain season ahead which will affect their animals.
Source: Daily News reported by Abduel Elinaza, from Dar es Salaam, Tanzania
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