Gov’t ponders cooking oil import ban

Mbongeni Mguni | Monday February 6, 2023 06:00

Homegrown: Lupro cooking oil is produced in Mahalapye. The firm’s founder says the company has tried and failed to secure government contracts or support for procurement

The ministries of Agriculture and Entrepreneurship are studying whether the country’s farmers and manufacturers have enough capacity that could allow government to restrict the importation of cooking oil.

Assistant Agriculture minister, Molebatsi Molebatsi told a horticulture Pitso on Tuesday that investigations into the issue were ongoing.

"With the Ministry of Entrepreneurship, we are looking at possibly restricting the importation of cooking oil,” he said. "We want those who can do sunflower and safflower, those who can do any other crops where the seeds can be pressed, to produce oil. "So many years after Independence, do we still need to be importing cooking oil when we have farmers who have land that could be used to do that?"

Annually, cooking and other edible oils are among the top items in the country’s P8 billion goods import bill. In October last year, the last month for available data, the country imported nearly P80 million in animal and vegetable fats and oils.

Local edible oil producers have previously pleaded with government to grant them preferential access to shop shelves, public sector contracts and ordinary consumers, to boost value addition and agro-processing, both key priorities under President Mokgweetsi Masisi’s Reset Agenda.

However, the possibility of an import ban on cooking could stir fears among consumers of a sharp increase in prices, similar to the trend seen after last January's restriction of the importation of 16 vegetables.

On Tuesday, Pandamatenga Commercial Farmers Association CEO, Lilian Scheepers said the country’s arable agriculture hub was primed to support efforts to achieve self-sufficiency in cooking oil production.

Pandamatenga is a commercial farming district measuring 40,000 hectares and focused on arable agriculture.

“Sunflower is the second largest crop we produce and about 45,000 tonnes has been produced each year for the past three years,” Scheepers told the Pitso. “Pandamatenga is a Special Economic Zone and last year, the Special Economic Zones Authority was talking about various initiatives in cooking oil. “They were talking about procuring sunflowers from outside the country and we told them they should be talking to the Botswana Agricultural Marketing Board which buys all our production. “We have enough to start our cooking oil pressing plants and this year we are going to have even more.”

Should government go ahead with an import restriction, then cooking oil will join other commodities such as cement, bottled water, and uniforms, which have been ring-fenced in order to boost the local infant industry.