Meat prices down by average 32pc in Kabul, Logar, Wardak

KABUL (Pajhwok): The prices of meat have dropped by an average of 32 percent in some parts of the country due to lack of government contracts and people’s poor economic condition, according to Pajhwok’s findings.

Pajhwok evaluated the price of meat in capital Kabul and in Maidan Wardak and Logar provinces. The findings show that the price of meat has dropped in Wardak and Logar provinces, as well as in some parts of Kabul, but in other areas the price remained the same.

Abdul Latif, a resident of Maidan Shahr, the capital of Maidan Wardak province, who sells and buys livestock, told Pajhwok Afghan News that after the fall of the previous government, the price of a kilogram of beef dropped from 380 to 250 afghanis and that of calf and lamb the price of a kilogram of meat dropped from around 480 to 280 afghanis.

“The most meat was consumed by the army. There were dozens of slaughterhouses in Kabul where hundreds of animals were slaughtered and delivered to the soldiers every day,” he said. “But now there are no soldiers and no meat buyers.”

According to reports, the number of Afghan security and defense forces reached more than 300,000 in 2021.

Abdul Latif said in addition to the Afghan security forces, the president’s office, ministries and other agencies and foreigners in Afghanistan also had meat contracts, but now everything was stalled.

According to reports, the cost of meat contracts with the interior and defense ministries reached more than 3.6 billion afghanis in the last three and a half years.

Khan Agha Rezai, a former member of the Wolesi Jirga, had earlier said that he had signed a contract with the president’s office for 17 types of meat.

Abdul Latif lamented the fall in meat prices, saying: “People in villages keep cows and sheep for profit, but now the price of meat has come down. A poor person loses between 5,000 and 8,000 afghanis on each cow and about 5000 afghanis on a sheep because there are no buyers.”

Shamsul Haq, a resident of Logar’s Mohammad Agha district, said some people bought animals in the hope that they would sell their meat for 450 to 500 afghanis a kilo, but now a kilo of meat in the retail market costs 250 to 270 afghanis and good meat 300 afghanis.

“Beef, veal and mutton have become cheaper,” said Farhad, a vendor at a bazaar in the Company Bazaar area of ​​Kabul’s 5th District.

He also said that the lack of government contracts for purchase of meat, the deteriorating economic situation of people and lack of jobs caused people to stop buying meat and the prices had come down.

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