沙漠研究 24-1, 249-252 (2014)
Ἃ₍◊✲ 24-1, 249 - 252 (2014)
Journal of Arid Land Studies
Journal of Arid Land Studies－ DT11 Refereed Paper －㸫DT11 Refereed Paper㸫Game Ranching for Meat Production in Marginal African Agricultural Lands
Susan M. COOPER*1) and Maretha VAN DER MERWE2)
Abstract: In the next 15 years, Africa must double its food production if it is to keep up with population growth and food shortages.
In South Africa, the 20 million head of game animals currently living on private and state owned land could prove to be the answer.
Utilizing game animals for meat production offers food security and economic sustainability while maintaining biodiversity. Gameranches operate with lower input costs because native animals are adapted to harsh environmental conditions and possess greater
resistance to diseases and parasites. In South Africa, over 10,000 wildlife ranches have transformed 25 million ha of marginal,
semi-arid agricultural land into thriving operations with abundant game numbers. A typical commercial game ranch generates an
economic output of $31/ha compared to $11/ha for conventional livestock farming, thus creating work opportunities for skilled andunskilled workers. In Africa, vast areas of communal lands are used for low profit small livestock production that could be utilized
more profitably through game meat production. Currently a lack of training and extension opportunities for Black economic
empowerment hamper native people from fully participating in this emerging and profitable industry. The South African
Government aims to have 30% of lands under Black ownership by 2014. This highlights the need to provide training in wildlife
management, animal production science and ecological principals of sustainable land management to Black students to enable them toparticipate fully in the transition from traditional livestock farming to more profitable and practical game farming.
Key Words: Africa, Black farmers, Game ranching, Meat production, Wildlife

1. Introduction
It was stated by Oberem (2011) that in the next 15 years
Africa must double its food production if it is to keep up withpopulation growth and relieve current food shortages. In
most developing countries diets are based on grains or roots(starch) and are often deficient in protein (Bwibo et al., 2003).
Animal foods provide essential sources of protein andimportant micronutrients (Murphy and Allen, 2003). Evensmall amounts of animal proteins added to a starch-based dietcan yield significant improvements in maternal health andearly child development (Neumann et al., 2003). In thispaper game ranching for meat is examined as a potential
sustainable method of protein production that requires lower
inputs, has a low carbon footprint and offers greater economic
returns than traditional livestock operations. This manuscript
will further discuss the efforts in South Africa to make thisform of agriculture more attainable for emergent Blackfarmers.
South Africa alone currently imports R4 (US $0.6) billion
worth of meat each year, which is still not adequate to fulfill
the needs of the population (Dry, 2011). Such reliance on
imports is unsustainable and more must be done to increase
domestic production of affordable meat. Game ranching formeat production offers a practical route to improved foodsecurity and economic sustainability combined withconservation of the biodiversity that drives the lucrative
African ecotourism industry (Falkena, 2003; Hoffmann andCawthorn, 2012).
Currently, game ranching is mostdeveloped in Southern Africa but is also practiced in East
Africa and to a limited extent in West Africa.
In South Africa, over 10,000 wildlife ranches havetransformed 25 million ha of marginal agricultural land withlimited water availability into thriving land use operations with
far greater economic output than from traditional livestock
enterprises (Dry, 2012). A typical commercial game ranch
generates an economic output of about $31/ha compared to$11/ha for conventional livestock farming and creates better
paid jobs for a more skilled workforce. According to Dry(2011) game ranching is the fifth largest agricultural sector
generating approximately R8 billion annually to the South
African economy.
The premise behind game ranching is that game ranches
can operate with lower input and management costs because
native animals are better adapted to local environmental
conditions, including heat and drought, and have greater
resistance to diseases, parasites and toxic plants(Ntiamoa-Baidu, 1997). Habitat degradation is a problem
throughout many African grazing lands, but game animals canbe kept at high stocking density because the mix of browsers
and grazers makes optimal use of all vegetation types (Muir,㸦Received, August 30th, 2013; Accepted, June 6th, 2014㸧

* Corresponding Author: s-cooper@tamu.edu
Texas A&M AgriLife Research, 1619 Garner Field Road, Uvalde, Texas 78801, USA
1) Texas A&M AgriLife Research

2) Wildlife Ranching South Africa

2501989). Furthermore, game tend to be more mobile thanlivestock, and are not as tied to watering locations, thusachieving better distribution across landscape which reduces
the potential for overgrazing (Muir, 1989; Ntiamoa-Baidu,1997). Harvesting game animals through hunting is easierand more humane than current collection and transportation of
livestock to the abattoir. A further advantage is that gameranching is not limited to meat production but also creates
income from ecotourism, photographic safaris, game lodges,
trophy hunting, breeding, color variants, curios and stock sales.
Vast areas of African communal lands are currently used for
low profit, small scale, livestock production. These lands
could be better used for game meat production, but at present
there is a great lack of training and extension opportunities forBlack economic empowerment to enable native people to fully
participate in this profitable industry. The South African
Government aims to have 30% of land under Black ownershipby 2014 and information on the opportunities and ways tochange to a more profitable and sustainable form of land use is
now crucial. Legislative change is needed to develop a
regulated market for game meat to ensure safe, quality gamemeat and traceability of the product (Dry, 2012). Poaching
and bush meat trades that are a danger both to human healthand wildlife conservation goals must be limited. Financial
assistance or initiatives from both the South African
Government and the Game Industry is needed to overcome theconsiderable start-up costs of game ranching. Training inwildlife management, animal production science andecological principals of sustainable land management needs tobe made available to young and upcoming Black farmers andmanagers of cooperatives to help them to become part of andbuild this profitable young industry (Cousins et al., 2008;
Hoffman and Bigalke, 1999; Van der Merwe, 2013).

2. Materials and Methods
Game ranching is defined as: “the management of game
animals in an extensive area with minimal human intervention
in the form of provision of water, supplemental feeding andstrategic health care”. Game farming, on the other hand isdefined as: “intensive breeding of quality wildlife”. However,both form a well-established industry in South Africa and are
the main agricultural land use in the Limpopo, North West andEastern Cape Provinces. It is important to note that there arevery few young and upcoming, or current Black African gameranchers and farmers. Wildlife Ranching South Africa(WRSA) is the sole non-profit organization representing South
African game ranchers and is responsible for negotiation with
non-governmental and governmental authorities (Dry, 2012).

WRSA has a history of effectively assisting governmental
authorities to establish policies, regulations, and norms andstandards applicable to the wildlife industry. WRSA is inaddition, committed to the integration of Black farmers into theindustry and is currently in the process of initiating suchprojects. The organization started in 2006 to actively promotechanges in health and safety legislation to improve the ability
to harvest, process and distribute game meat (Van der Merwe,2013). To this effect, several auction facilities are available
for live sales of game, export-quality game meat abattoirs havebeen built and plans to introduce mobile game harvesting
abattoirs are being put forward.
A workshop with key WRSA stakeholders and Texas
A&M AgriLife in May 2012 to discuss collaborative links
between the wildlife industry in South Africa and USA,highlighted the desperate need in South Africa for an active
Agricultural Extension Service and training opportunities fornative people to make more productive use of the extensive
Rural Tribal Trust lands.

3. Results and Discussion
Significant barriers still exist in developing a thriving
multiracial game ranching community. These include land
tenure patterns, the high cost to start up, legislative restrictions
on the processing and distribution of game meats, a deficit oftrained meat inspectors/examiners and lack of training andecological knowledge of potential ranch and cooperative trustmanagers (Dry, 2011, 2012). However, in South Africa thereare significant activities afoot to overcome these problems andpave the way for historically disadvantaged farmers toparticipate in this endeavor.
3.1. Start-up assistance
In Limpopo province in South Africa positive action in
helping emerging African farmers to establish sustainablegame ranches has been taken with the signing in May 2013 ofan agreement between WRSA and the Limpopo Economic
Development Environment and Tourism (LEDET). Together
LEDET and WRSA pledge to assist emerging game ranchers
by providing start up animals including plains game (e.g.
impala, wildebeest) for meat production to newly establishedgame ranches and also expensive species (e.g. sable, roan,buffalo) for breeding programs to more experienced game
farmers. LEDET will identify land for emerging gameranchers and identify candidate beneficiaries, while WRSA
will mentor emerging game ranchers, help them develop
business plans and give them access to WRSA game auctions
to market and sell their animals.

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3.2. Changes in legislation
In South Africa, commercial game meat production mustcomply with all the legal requirements in the Meat Safety Act
40 of 2000 (South Africa, 2000). Game animals to be used
for meat must be dressed in an approved, registered slaughter
facility and inspected by an independent game meat inspector.
This requirement is important to ensure meat quality and foodsafety but it does prevent the commercial use of carcasses ofhunted trophy animals, which currently provide 80% of all
locally available game meat.
Moreover, currently
construction of game meat abattoirs is costly and coupled tothat the S.A. Government cannot render the inspection service
due to lack of manpower and the vast distances to or between
game farms (Van der Merwe et al., 2011). To inter alia
address such problems, WRSA negotiated with Department ofAgriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (DAFF) for a Game Meat
Scheme that will enable registered limited throughput gameharvesting and slaughter facilities, such as those on ranches, toproduce meat for the local market for a period of 5 years while
such facilities are being upgraded to the standards set by theMeat Safety Act 40 of 2000 (Van der Merwe, 2013). The
Scheme furthermore sets standards for hygiene practices
during harvesting, transportation and handling of game meat
(Van der Merwe, 2012). Procedures are being established totrain meat examiners and other personnel in the correct
harvesting and slaughter procedures, as well as systems within
the harvesting and slaughter processes to ensure good
traceability of game meat produced under the Scheme. The
Game Meat Scheme was published for public comments on 28
September 2012. DAFF indicated that by January 2014 theGame Meat Scheme will be promulgated under the Meat
Safety Act. WRSA has furthermore proposed that mobileabattoirs, as used by the export market, be allowed for the local
market and that such units be registered with DAFF for
utilization on different ranches.
3.3. Training and opportunities
The Game Meat Scheme provides access to training formeat inspections and in basic meat hygiene to slaughter staff
and emergent farmers (Van der Merwe, 2013). WRSA will
provide mentoring for new game ranchers and has active
training programs for game rangers, but financial assistanceand involvement of other role players are needed (Dry, 2012).
This study proposes that a student exchange or internshipprograms to bring Black South African students to the US toparticipate in classes on wildlife, range management and meat
science. Furthermore, students will experience the Americanparadigm of wildlife management and the effectiveness of theland-grant Extension Service. Most of the hunters andwildlife viewing tourists in South Africa are American and this

proposed exposure to the American culture will enhance thestudents’ understanding of the expectations of their futureclientele. Combined with the opportunity to participate in aninternship on a game ranch run by a collaborating member ofWRSA, the knowledge and expertise gained in the US andSouth Africa will ultimately assist and ensure the production ofgood natural game meat as protein food for future generationsin Africa. It is furthermore advised that students should workin pairs to ameliorate the stress and culture shock ofinternational travel and a long period away from traditional
African family support. Ultimately the goal is for thesestudents to become leaders in their community and create
extension type training courses to empower Black farmers,
students and community leaders to run productive gameranches on communal lands.
4. Conclusion
Use of native animals to provide meat and income frommarginal agricultural land in Africa has increased greatly since
its inception in the 1960s (Carruthers, 2008; Van der Merwe etal., 2011; Dry, 2012). Assistance should now be at hand totransfer this technology to emergent Black African farmers sothat they can sustainably produce healthy and natural animal
protein to help feed their nation, help their country become
independent of imported meat, and ultimately conserve theirnatural wildlife heritage for future generations.

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