03 Sep 2023

Moshupa Women presented some harvest from their fields to Kgosi Kgabosetso II Mosielele alongside men singing traditional songs as Bakgatla-Ba-Ga-Mmanaana celebrated the annual Dikgafela ceremony on Friday.

The event was attended by multitudes of people from Moshupa and neighbouring villages, as well as some visitors from South Africa.

Ambassador of China to Botswana, Mr Wang Xuefeng and Minister of Entrepreneurship Mr Karabo Gare, who is also the Member of Parliament for Moshupa, were among dignitaries who graced the event.

Giving accepting dikgafela, Kgosi Mosielele explained that the event was an expression of gratitude to God for the previous season’s harvest.

Kgosi Mosielele further said by thanking God, the community was also asking for more blessings and more rain so that they could have more harvest in the next ploughing season.

He urged the community to heed the call by President Dr Mokgweetsi Masisi by changing the way they did things and taking farming more seriously so that they could increase the amount of harvest from their fields.

He said Botswana would be able to stop importing food from other countries if citizens could take farming more seriously and produce more food.

“We should strive to produce more food and stop relying on food importation.

We can achieve that if we increase the effort we put in farming,” he said.

Kgosi Mosielele encouraged the community to ask for information from agricultural field officers in the district about types of crops which grow better in the area.

He said growing suitable crops for the soil in their area would lead to better harvest.

He asked livestock owners to keep a watchful eye on their animals and stop them from wandering into fields and destroying crops.

Kgosi Mosielele then declared the beginning of next ploughing season, a tradition referred to as  go bolotsa letsema in Setswana

Mr Gare said food insecurity was important to any nation, therefore Batswana should find ways of producing food for themselves.

He further said there was capacity for Botswana to be food sufficient if citizens could take farming more seriously.

He said government had put in place many programmes such as Temo Letlotlo and artificial insemination programme to develop agriculture and increase food production.

Moshupa acting senior chief representative, Kgosi Oscar Mosielele said celebrating dikgafela in Moshupa was to encourage the community to venture into farming and produce food for the country.

Mr Thapelo Kachala from the Ministry of Agriculture told the community that soils in the Moshupa area were more suitable for sorghum, beans and other legumes, encouraging them to focus more on ploughing those crops.

He also asked them to take care of their crops if they wanted to maximise harvest.

“We should also be timely in our ploughing. This is the right time to go to the farms and start preparing fields for when rain comes,” he said.

Mr Kachala also encouraged them to start taking farming as business and strive for profit making. ENDS