Windhoek, Namibia – “We had to close the market for several days. It was just before the weekend and month’s end. That’s when we need the money the most,” says Francisco, a vendor at Single Quarter, Windhoek’s largest open meat market.
He pours vinegar and cooking oil into a tomato and onion salsa, a traditional accompaniment to kapana, a popular grilled-meat street food. Around him, many stalls and grilling stations sit empty. Instead of the crowds that typically fill the market during business hours, only a handful of customers move between the stalls.
Recent closures and concerns about meat supplies have disrupted business. We are struggling to buy meat, but without it, we cannot survive,” says another kapana vendor, who asked to remain anonymous. The meat is much more expensive now, so we are making less money altogether.
If this continues for three months, it is going to be very bad for us.” In Katutura, Windhoek’s largest township, uncertainty over beef supplies is adding to residents’ financial concerns. We are Namibians,” one resident says, describing meat as a staple of the local diet. Another worries about rising prices and the wider consequences for Namibia, where livestock exports are an important part of the economy.
At a supermarket in the Okuryangava suburb, the butchery has already run out of some premium beef products. Store manager Enrico De Azevedo, 23, says consumer behaviour has also contributed to the pressure. Now, they can go and stack their meat next to their toilet paper,” he says.
De Azevedo also recognises the wider economic risks. In an address on October 5, President Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah said surveillance teams had recorded 127 positive cases across 15 farms. Teams had inspected 29,313 animals across 68 farms.
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