Chobe Land Board allocates 30,000ha for commercial farming

Chakalisa Dube | Monday December 6, 2021 06:00

The Land Board’s chair, Johane Chenjekwa told the media that tens of thousands of hectares have been set aside as part of Pandamatenga’s status as a Special Economic Zone (SEZ).

“A total of 30,000 hectares of additional land for expansion has been allocated by the board for expansion of the existing Pandamatenga Commercial Farms to facilitate the dream by the Special Economic Zones Authority of promoting farming activities in the area,” Chenjekwa said in a briefing.

He added that the Special Economic Zones Authority has also been allocated 100 hectares for the development of an agro-processing plant, common facilities and investors’ residential area as part of the Pandamatenga SEZ initiative. The decision to allocate land for a processing plant was taken following the realisation that most of the agricultural produce in the Pandamatenga is exported to food processing plants in South Africa, then sold back to Botswana, which is very costly.

“Both the production zone and agro-processing have not been developed to date. However, funding has been sourced from African Development Bank and a Memorandum of Agreement has been signed to release funding for the appointment of a technical advisor who shall act as a transactional advisor during the development of the Expression of Interest to identify partners who can develop the production zone as it is envisaged to be developed through Public Private Partnership Model,” Chenjekwa said.

The construction of 12 modern silos, which are part of the Pandamatenga SEZ, are almost complete with the project now at 70% completion. The 12 modern steel grain silos have an overall storage capacity of 60,000 metric tonnes.

Last year when delivering the State of the Nation Address, President Mokgweetsi Masisi explained that the silos are meant to facilitate increased agro-production by augmenting the limited capacity of the existing 30,000 metric tonne silos.

The Pandamatenga SEZ has been zoned as an integrated Agropolis measuring about 137,007 hectares, reserved for projects such as cereal production, agro-processing, water management solutions as well as production of pesticides and fertilisers.

Land measuring 84,500ha has been set aside for commercial production, another 12,400ha for subsistence production and another 107ha for production of food, animal feed and fertilisers.