22 Mar 2013

Government continues to resolve challenges faced by farmers as a way to encourage them to venture into the agriculture sector.

The Assistant Minister of Agriculture, Mr Oreeditse Molebatsi said during a kgotla meeting at Rasesa on Thursday that government was working on reviewing the P400 per hectare paid to tractor owners for ploughing.

He however said the changes would be announced in due course when all processes had been completed.

Mr Molebatsi raised a concern that although there was potential to grow beans in the country, the quantity produced is below the country’s consumption capacity. This, he said has resulted in the importation of beans from Australia to meet the local market demands.

Botswana Agricultural Marketing Board (BAMB), he said, would begin to buy a bag of beans at P700 from farmers and he encouraged farmers to take advantage of the initiative and eventually help to address the country’s food security.

Furthermore, the assistant minister announced that following farmers complaints about low prices, the government has proposed to increase the price of goats from P500 to P700 from April this year. 

The government, he said, has also accepted integrated farming, which would allow farmers to use their fields for other activities such as rearing livestock, ploughing and even drilling boreholes.

Mr Molebatsi called upon Rasesa residents to take advantage of the programmes availed by the government to improve their lives adding that the government would continue to give farmers free seeds for the upcoming ploughing season.

He asked residents to register for the seeds as well as utilize the modern methods of farming to turn around the fortunes of farmers.

Residents complained that only a handful of the residents have benefited from government programs.

One Ms Kelebogile Gopane called on the minister to send a team to the area to sensitize residents on government programmes such as LIMID, Youth Development Fund and poverty eradication packages.

Other members of the community complained about crime and wild animals which destroy their crops and the assistant minister promised to forward the issues to the relevant ministries for interventions. ENDS