Africa-Press – Eswatini. Women Farmer Foundation founder and Director Sonia Paiva says business opportunities are bountiful in the exportation of high value agricultural products to Eswatini’s leading trading partner and neighbour South Africa.
Speaking during an engagement between the South African high commission and industry leaders, Paiva highlighted that products such as pork and sheep farming presented unexplored opportunities in the context of South Africa.
“Pork and sheep are in great demand in South Africa for the unfortunate reason of theft,” said Paiva.
She indicated that South African farmers were shying away from such production due to the high theft risk in the farming of both pigs and sheep.
“Eswatini could benefit and create an export market between the two countries,” she said.
Paiva added that these pig and sheep products could further extend opportunities in value addition.
She said it further opened more opportunities in various industries leading to diversification.
“add value and process the meat into sausages, bacon and so on,” she said.
Paiva said governments had the important role to play as enablers.
She said there were areas that needed to be worked on before external partners could be engaged.
“Such as the abattoirs, all meat needs to be certified and we do not have enough abattoirs as the ones that exist belong to a few people in the private sector,” said WFF founder.
She stated that South African requirements to export/import into SA required sanatory certificates that on many occasions could not be issued efficiently.
“Thus resulting in the deterioration of the fresh produce,” said Paiva.
Adding she said the country was not able to import cattle because of the risk of foot and mouth desease.
“Please note that we do not want to import foot and mouth into our country. We need livestock that is disease free, therefore, both governments need to agree on the bilateral agreements concerning veterinary services for a more effective way of doing business,” she said.
Paiva said the reality was that the country further did not have breeding stock, therefore, providing more opportunities for further collaboration between the two countries in this sector.
“Developing this area of opportunity is a great challenge which both governments need to prioritise and work towards an amicable solution to be able to quarantine the animals or have a system in place as this area of opportunity may be developed both ways,” said Paiva.
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