TIME TO SELL

'Time to sell' was published by the Sunday News 'Livestock Markets by Muhle M. Masuku on the 21/11/11

“Masuku it is that time of the year we stay in hotels and burn fuel to cattle sale points for nothing,” said a dejected cattle buyer. This is the time when cattle sale teams in nearly all the districts return empty handed simply because farmers are not offering their livestock for sell. It is that time again when certain sale points are not visited at all due to low yardings.

Various reasons are proffered, however chief amongst them is the focus on crop production. What with the seed and fertiliser packs on offer, a perfect distraction. It takes quite an effort and loads of luck to get a few bags of maize in our drought prone region. Yet it never dawns on us that this is much ado about nothing.

As predicted, the post Botswana cattle era jump started price machinations and one ought to be equally cunning to match the scheming. Here is the fundamental thing, everyone has a weak spot and farmers lack the necessary insight into buyer vulnerability. “Why Masuku are you waking up the sleepy, what is in there for you?” one buyer confronted me. Never mind me, I will sell-out anyway because I have been accused already of industrial espionage.  

This is the time you have so many livestock buyers competing to pounce on every available animal being sold on the market. The reason behind this is not magical, but simple marketing, when demand outstrips supply the price goes up. That festive mood is infectious, causing a high degree of reckless expenditure by the consuming public. 

November is traditionally bonus month in Zimbabwe, and every rational buyer wants to be found ready. There is also an influx of diaspora money to augment waning fortunes back home. Spending is higher than normal up to New Year holidays. There is a general scarcity of meat during that period owing to the mismatch between demand and supply of raw materials.

Here is the jinx; buyers are let off the hook this time every year just when farmers are supposed to go for the jagular, they simply relent. This is the time to squeeze hard till you get that top dollar. Who said God favours the better off, we are given equal opportunities, it’s just that some simply don’t take their chances. 

Come January, everybody will be selling something in order to take care of school fees. We really can be short sighted. There will be so many cattle such that buyers will be highly selective. Buyers are elevated to the status of demi-God as farmers beg for any price. Tata Mkwenyana, abantwabami bangaxotshwa esikolo (just take at that price, otherwise my children will be chased away from school), the higher the desperation, the lower the price.

Our road to prosperity is heavily sign posted but we continue to step on poverty traps. Even someone reading this article still finds it difficult to break away from this culture of selling out of desperation. Some people have correctly termed it the January disease, so predictable and indeed a departure from normal. For me, that is a kill joy. It defeats the very essence of this column.

  

What are our extension officers telling farmers this time of the year? By the way just last week I was lamenting on the shortage of extension personnel in the department of Livestock Production and development (LPD). When and when not to sell is fundamental in so far as the emancipation of the rural resource poor farmers is concerned.

A concerted effort is needed to reduce skewed information heavily in favour of cattle buyers. There is wide cell phone coverage which can be used to transmit valuable information such as prices to farmers in previously considered very remote rural areas. This is something that needs the attention of all stakeholders right up to village level. 

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