Africa-Press – Angola. The Cooperative of Cattle Breeders of Southern Angola (CCGSA), expressed Friday, concern about the weak slaughter capacity in Huíla, due to the lack of a slaughterhouse under its supervision, which forces the monthly transport of more than two thousand head of cattle to Luanda and in degrading conditions.
The meat currently consumed in the province comes from small traditional slaughterhouses, many of them clandestine, and from some farms. There are two industrial slaughterhouses on the Mumba farm, in Cuvango and Humpata, for a province with a livestock population estimated at three heads.
Speaking within the scope of the Cooperative’s 20th anniversary, marked on the 11th of the current month, its general secretary, Carlos Damião, stated that it was “torture” for the animals to travel from Lubango to Luanda, a situation aggravated by the state of the roads, when the animals should be slaughtered here, but instead they are transported long distances, arrive stressed and lose weight.
He declared the need to create an “urgent” slaughterhouse to serve CCGSA members and avoid this “effort” for the animal, as it is one thing for cattle to make a journey of one hundred kilometers, Chibemba (Gambos)-Lubango, another is to make more than thousand Chibemba-Luanda, a situation that influences the quality of the final product.
“This is our fight and we will continue to do so whenever we can in the appropriate instances. We have some members with personal slaughterers and they slaughter, but it is urgent that the cooperative has a slaughterhouse to prevent the movement of animals for slaughter along the road,” he said.
In addition to the two Mumba slaughterhouses, according to the source, there is another in the Benfica neighborhood, in Lubango, which is private, but also slaughters for individuals, but it is a difficulty, hence the daily transport of hundreds of heads to Luanda.
When asked about the quantities of meat that members place on the market, the source was unable to specify, due to the fact that the Cooperative does not yet have a slaughterhouse, as breeders slaughter in existing precarious spaces, with no possibility of creating statistics.
According to the source, between 1,000 and 1,500 cattle leave Huíla every month, with the largest market being Luanda.
In addition to the situation, he estimated that 30 to 40 percent of the meat consumed in Huíla is national, whether beef, goat, sheep and pork, representing growth that requires further investment.
The southern region has the largest livestock herd in the country, with more than three million heads, with emphasis on cattle with close to two million, of which 90 percent are in the hands of indigenous breeders. The Cooperative has 75 members.
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