Programme Overview
The Botswana Meat Commission is one of Africa’s most significant beef exporters, supplying premium beef to the EU and UK markets under the Botswana trade protocol. The December 2026 EUDR enforcement deadline creates a direct compliance requirement for every shipment of Botswana beef entering the EU.
GMIT is working with BMC to develop an end-to-end EUDR compliance programme covering the full herd-to-hook evidence chain. The programme uses Botswana’s national livestock traceability system (BAITS) ear-tag records — which already track individual cattle movements from birth to slaughter — as the chain of custody backbone. The missing layer is farm polygon mapping: linking each BAITS farm establishment code to a precise geo-polygon that can be cross-referenced against the GFC2020 forest reference layer for deforestation analysis.
Once polygon registration is complete, GMIT’s BFAST-based satellite deforestation analysis pipeline runs against the registered farm polygons. The Botswana savanna context requires specific calibration: semi-arid mopane woodland and Kalahari sandveld have distinct phenological signatures that differ from tropical forest, and the satellite analysis must correctly distinguish seasonal vegetation change from permanent deforestation.
The output is a blockchain-attested Due Diligence Statement for each shipment, submitted to the EU TRACES NT system before the consignment crosses the EU border. Each DDS is cryptographically time-stamped on Polygon blockchain, providing BMC with a non-repudiable audit trail that transfers liability documentation to the platform.
Pilot programme underway. Full case study with results to be published following completion of farm polygon registry and first DDS submission. Contact us for a briefing on the BMC programme structure.