Surrounded by Arab countries, why can’t Ethiopia get a billion dollars from halal meat?

halal meat

The global halal food market is estimated at $1.6 trillion.

In France, which has six million Muslims, the halal food market is worth 6 billion euros a year.

The idea of ​​halal industry in Ethiopia does not seem to exist.

The industry is not known except for a few Arabian restaurants.

There are no indigenous halal pizza and halal burger places that can invite a foreign guest who wants to taste halal food.

Halal restaurants are also widespread in the western world where there are few Muslims.

Ethiopia not only has more Muslim population than neighboring countries but also some Arab countries.

It is also the seat of several Arab embassies. But its halal supply is negligible.

Let us return to the domestic halal market another time. Today let’s talk about foreign trade.

How can we not earn foreign currency while exporting halal meat like coffee?

So what is the idea?

What is halal meat?


For Muslims, halal is not just about the meat. It is a ‘style of life’. As many think, the idea does not end with food and drink.

Pharmaceutical products, beauty products, even hotels are checked to see if they are halal.

There is also a big idea called ‘Halal Tourism’. From staying at a halal hotel where no alcohol is sold, the entire tourism service is provided by the halal chain.

For today, if we only take halal meat separately, the meaning will be narrowed.

From the name of the animal offered for slaughter to be blessed to make it halal, to the method of sacrifice, including its feeding, there are strict practices.

Slaughterhouses that follow this Islamic method of slaughter are considered halal butchers.

But that’s not the focus of this article, so we won’t go into it.

We mentioned this to explain that ‘Halal’ is not something that ends only with the body.

But sometimes we hear that things outside the body are said to be ‘halal, not halal’; why?

A product becomes forbidden when it is a byproduct of foods that are forbidden (haram) in Islam.

For example, pork is forbidden in Islam. For example, dog meat is forbidden.

If the by-product of the meat is used to make a drug, that drug will be removed from the list of halal.

Like gelato, ice creams, chocolates, creamy biscuits, if they have a touch of pork in one or the other, they will be banned.

Some lipsticks use asa as a raw material.

Various pharmaceutical drugs taken during pregnancy, such as their capsules, are prohibited in Islam if they are made from this raw material.

So when we say halal industry, it can extend from a huge financial institution and tourism to a single lipstick.

meat

Why can’t Ethiopia invest dollars in this sector?


Now Ethiopia is focused on wheat.

However, experts emphasize that the halal industry is another dollar-laundering sector that has not been affected in Ethiopia.

Binmelik Abdo is engaged in promoting this halal sector.

In their meeting with the BBC, Binmelik said, ‘I don’t know of any other country that is in a favorable position to benefit from the halal industry as much as Ethiopia.’

A few months ago, he organized a Halal Expo to introduce this wide opportunity to local investors and many investors attended it.

Binmelik said, ‘Ethiopia should have organized an international halal expo, not a local one.’ They regret it.

Agriculture Minister Omar Hussain, who was present at the same forum, expressed the same sentiment.

There are many products that Ethiopia offers to the halal market from the agricultural sector, the minister said. They said that if we expand our reach and meet the needs of the recipient country, we will benefit a lot in the sector.

So why don’t we deliver at that level?

Let’s start with the question why Ethiopia is considered suitable for halal industry.

Binmelik responds by making two key points.

First, Ethiopia is close to the Middle East.

Second, Ethiopia is rich in horned cattle.

Although it is difficult to find reliable information, Ethiopia is the first in Africa in terms of horned cattle resources (based on numbers only). She is praised as the 5th in the world.

So why are we failing to get more from the sector?

“First, the attitude of the Arabs towards us must change.”
One obstacle is the negative attitude of the Arab world towards us.

This negative feeling is thought to be due to our previous history of famine.

Another problem is that our supply is not reliable and at the high quality level they want.

‘They don’t have much confidence in our meat production,’ says Abreha Negash, an expert interviewed by the BBC.

Mr. Abreha is the Director of the Meat Industries Development Directorate at the Meat and Milk Industry Development Institute.

Many things made the Arabs lose faith in us.

This includes the way we take care of the cattle, the quality and management of our slaughterhouses, hygiene, feed supply, etc.

For example, meat suppliers in some Arab countries want to know the entire life history of the cattle.

Mr. Abreha summarizes this idea as ‘traceability’.

They want to know the whole life story of a goat, where it was born, what it ate, what it was vaccinated for, where it entered the slaughterhouse and at what age it was slaughtered.’

This may sound strange. It does not go away saying that it is fat.

But one of the stumbling blocks in our spending business is our lack of compliance.

Our failure to present the life story of the cow traditionally.

Ato Abreha faced the same question at an exhibition in Dubai.

‘Why are you calling for a discount price for our meat while paying $5 per kilo for Australian meat? They call it A carnal bearer.

They challenged him saying, ‘…and it’s our organic meat.’

This Arab’s reply was as follows:-

‘By the way, can you provide me with the certificate information that the goat is organic?’

HALAL

Other obstacles that prevented us from getting a billion dollars


Binmelik believes that the main challenge is to obtain international accreditation.

They say this is the certificate that we don’t have, others have.

Countries like Brazil, Argentina, Australia and New Zealand lose a lot of wealth by exporting halal meat to Arab countries.

The Arabs accept their meat for no other reason than because they reliably provide them with a certificate of recognition that meets the standard.

Binmelik says, ‘Brazil alone exports 350,000 tons of halal meat to the Middle East every year.’

It was nothing else that made them angry. Brazil is thousands of miles away from the Middle East.

Ethiopia is under the nose of Arab countries.

However, Ethiopia was able to export only 22 thousand tons of meat to the Middle East in 2014.

This is the very, very least of Ethiopia’s potential.

So how did the country exhaust its potential and not get a better income?

Our people don’t say how many cattle they have, but what kind of cattle they have.


Just because we have more cattle doesn’t mean we can ship more.

Mr. Abreha Itdepia explains that although it is still a country with a large stock of horned cattle, it does not mean that it cannot be marketed.

One reason is the needs and standards of the supplier countries.

’80 percent of what is exported to the Middle East is goat meat. This is because their demand for goats is high. ‘

The beef that is sent on top of that must be male. Sending a mother away is considered genocide.

Besides this, there is also a physiological reason why female cattle should not be sent for slaughter. Because their meat becomes fat quickly.

Only goat meat from eight months to two years old is exported. It does not mean that it will be sent without all this age.

Only selected will be sent. For example, the goat’s body should be lean.

When this detail is set, even though we have a large stock of cattle, we can only send a few.

Both Mr. Abreham and Mr. Binmelik agree that in our country, cattle are a measure of wealth, not wealth creation.

Abreha says, ‘We have a society that counts by the horns.’ When they explain, ‘the pastoralist is not so much concerned about how many cattle I have, but what kind of cattle I have.’

‘If a fly is found in a cage, they leave it’


Another challenge is the quality level of our slaughterhouses. They can slaughter 200 thousand tons. per year.

Although there are 18 halal slaughterhouses, only 11 are operating at full capacity.

Even they are working only 20 percent of their capacity.

On top of that, their quality level did not impress the receivers.

‘Usually the Arabs come for supervision and are not very happy with what they see when they go to the slaughterhouse. Binmelik says.

Abraham has a similar experience.

‘Every year they come from Dubai and other countries to see the conditions. It is a crime to find a rusty metal or a fly in a slaughterhouse. They will not accept a second. ‘

If the Arabs do not accept us, we will have no ruler.

Why are we sending less?


There are many reasons why the supply is so low.

One and the main one is the frequent lack of peace in pastoral areas.

Abreha says, ‘not only conflict, but they are frequently affected by drought.’

In addition, cattle are often beaten when brought to the slaughterhouse. If they are beaten, their flesh turns black.

Another thing that Mr. Abraham says is costing us a lot as a country is that the cattle are driven away illegally in the border area.

This requires another independent commentary, so we will return to it another time.

What can we do to get 1 billion dollars?


Last year, Ethiopia’s halal meat export to the Middle East was less than 120 million dollars.

This chapter clearly shows our potential.

Because if we can send 22 thousand tons and send 120 million dollars, it does not need to be a paint horn to estimate how many billion dollars we can invest if we send 350 thousand tons per year like Brazil.

So what do we do?

Binmelik says the first step to achieving this is to obtain a halal certification.

A Halal Certification Institute with international accreditation has been established for the time being.

That certificate means that products can enter the Middle East.

This certificate will prove that a product has been manufactured through Halal lines.

The next step is to build the Halal infrastructure

This includes everything from slaughterhouses, ranches, and shipping.

It is better for each slaughterhouse to have its own large plot of land and its own feedlot and cattle shed.

‘There must be modern farming, we need to keep track of cattle health, vaccination, birth and entire life history,’ says Mr. Abreha.

‘What disease did this cattle have when it was alive? Everyone will ask you, ‘What did you get vaccinated for?’

Another bottleneck is the middleman chain.

‘The current market is disturbed by brokers,’ says Binmelik and Mr. Abraham.

Is getting 1 billion dollars from halal meat a long way to go?

Both Binmelik and Abreha believe that this income is not far away if it is done with determination.

Now the Arabs pay an average of $6 per kilo of meat.

Now we are sending only 20 thousand tons.

We got 120 million dollars from this. The slaughterhouses are operating at 20 percent capacity.

According to this calculation, if we export 200,000 tons of halal meat, $1 billion is easily available.

Addis Ababa embassies that import meat


Mr. Abreha is repeatedly concerned about increasing the trust of the recipient countries in us.

It seems that this work should start from Addis Ababa.

Binmelik mentioned that the embassies he met on business occasions import halal meat even for their own consumption.

He dismissed it as nonsense, but it is not nonsense.

It is disappointing that a country with 120 embassies, the African Union, does not meet the demand for halal.

It is common to see diplomats in the African Union standing at the meat aisle of every supermarket debating whether it is halal or the tal seal.

This is not the only thing that is surprising.

Even more surprising is the fact that there are embassies importing halal meat from their own countries for their employees.

‘Many embassy people have questions. What exactly are we eating, where does the meat come from, will it be in contact with pigs?’, they ask us.

Without building the confidence of diplomats in Addis Ababa, waiting for a call from Riyadh to send us halal meat seems like a foolish idea.

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