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Article: Tanzania: where is the beef? Tanzania has the potential to be one of Africa's biggest exporters of beef and livestock but a moribund infrastructure, diseases and poor marketing get in the way. Herald Tagama reports on efforts to revive the industry.
- Article from:
- African Business
- Article date:
- August 1, 2003
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2003 IC Publications Ltd. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Tanzania's national cattle herd is the third largest in Africa at 17m head--after Ethiopia and Sudan with 31m and 30m respectively. Yet it earns only a paltry $4m from the export of cattle, beef and related products, compared to the $100m Botswana earns from this agro-sector.
The government, with the support of international organisations, is now determined to reverse this trend and turn cattle into a major revenue generating resource--but obstacles remain.
The country's industrial beef production went into a tail spin when the collapse of the state-owned Tanganyika Packers Ltd in 1974 was followed, a year later, by the spread of various cattle diseases. ...