The Botswana Meat Commission (BMC) has slaughtered significantly more cattle at its Lobatse plant this year despite continued disruption to the livestock sector caused by Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD).
The plant processed 12,378 cattle between January and July 2026, an increase of 6,892 head compared with the same period last year.
The rise comes as restrictions on cattle movement and other disease-control measures continue to disrupt supply chains and limit the movement of livestock in affected areas.
Lobatse Mayor Aron Mosimanegape Ganakgomo said the continued threat of FMD placed greater responsibility on farmers and livestock owners to comply with movement restrictions and cooperate with veterinary authorities. The increase in slaughtering comes as the BMC pushes ahead with several projects at Lobatse, although some remain some distance from completion.
The new cattle entrance is 95 percent complete, while the Meat Value Addition and Secondary Processing Plant is 63 percent complete. The Lobatse Tannery is 89 percent complete and is expected to be commissioned in September.
The projects are intended to expand processing capacity and allow more livestock products to be processed locally. The tannery, for example, could increase the domestic processing of hides, rather than leaving them as a largely unprocessed by-product.
For the beef industry, however, the immediate challenge remains FMD. The government has allocated P97 million towards containing the outbreak, including vaccination and other interventions, while movement restrictions have been imposed in affected areas.
The stronger slaughter numbers at Lobatse therefore come against a difficult operating backdrop. Whether the increase can be sustained will depend partly on the availability of cattle and the extent to which disease-control measures continue to restrict movement.
With Botswana’s beef industry already facing disease and market-access pressures, the performance of the Lobatse plant offers a useful measure of how much activity remains possible under the current constraints.