Die ekonomiese lewensvatbaarheid van 'n wildsvleisverwerkingsaanleg in Suid-Afrika

Abstract

The economic viability of a venison processing plant in South Africa. During the past few years the game industry has developed into an important sector of the South African economy. The number of game-fenced farms has increased drastically and more stock-farmers in South-Africa are changing over to game-farming due to the poor yield which stock-farming generates as a result of the import of cheap beef, mutton and poultry, the increasing in stock-theft, labour laws and the ever increasing input cost. The rapid growth in the game industry creates the problem that the market for live game for the more general game species is reaching saturation point. The oversupply of the game, which result in the point of saturation of the general game species, is a direct result of the decrease of the income of the hunter. Which is a result of the economic situation in South Africa. The economic factors can be describe as the high inflation, high interest rates of the past, the affirmative action and the unemployment to name just a few. The foreign hunter is mostly scared away by the crime in the land. The game industry has five target markets, namely: ·:· Local hunters ·:· Overseas hunters ·:· Sale of live game ·:· Venison sales ·:· Eco-tourism Eco tourism is classified as a non-consumptive utilization, which means that the game is not removed from the field and is therefore not a solution for the problem of oversupply of game. All the forms of hunting, venison sales and sale of live game is classified as consumptive utilization, which means the game is taken off the field. Sales of live game has the restriction that a game farm can only take so many and growth rate of the game is much faster than growth of the amount of game farms. Hunting on the other hand has decreasing during the past year, which means that less game was taken from the field than previous year. The game industry is facing the problem of oversupply and need to find an alternative marketing channel to address the problem. The solution needs to be in the interest of nature, the game farmer and game industry as a whole. The problem of oversupply can be addressed by the marketing of venison. The statement served as motivation for this study.