Veggie import ban reaches moment of truth
Mbongeni Mguni | Wednesday February 15, 2023 12:41
Authorities at the Ministry of Agriculture are having a difficult time accepting the statistics they are seeing about the progress farmers have made since the ban on certain vegetables began last January.
According to the figures, the total number of horticultural farmers in the country have increased by 300 to 1,600 since the ban took effect in January 2022, while production has increased by 11,000 tonnes.
The country’s annual demand for different horticultural products is about 112,000 tonnes and current local output is about 67,612 tonnes meaning local farmers are supplying about 60 percent of consumers’ requirements.
With one year left until the import ban on certain vegetables elapses, agriculture policymakers, farmers and other stakeholders are scrambling to get accurate figures on how the horticulture has been performing.
“I was told that since the restriction started, we increased the farmers in horticulture from 1,300 to 1,600 and I said this thing is not working, “Assistant Agriculture minister, Molebatsi Molebatsi told a meeting of the horticulture industry last week.
“With the good things the restriction is doing, you mean, we just have only 300 more farmers?
“Or may be the statistics are not correct because they show that we only have 300 more but we thought we would have at least 1,000 more.”
Getting statistics on the progress local farmers have made since the ban was instituted is critical as the industry and government debate whether to push for an extension of the restriction.
Botswana is a member of the Southern African Customs Union (SACU) and the World Trade Organisation (WTO), both of which not only frown upon trade barriers, but are reportedly breathing down government’s necks to ensure that the two year restriction ends when it should next January.
Molebatsi, who in the meeting last week, admitted that he was among the principle architects of the horticultural import ban, had been hoping that with a year to go, the intervention would show strong signs of local self-sufficiency in horticulture.
“According to both SACU and the WTO, the restrictions will not be forever,” the assistant minister said.
“We gave them our time limit and we said two years. They are looking at us and watching us because the restriction cannot run forever.
“How many months are we left with for that two years to finish and if there are gaps?
“As government, we know that at the end of two years, we should be self-sufficient, having trained and developed our own horticultural farmers so that we can even export.”
For consumers, the past one year under the import restrictions has largely been a roller-coaster of shortages, price-gouging and market-flooding, as local horticulture producers have struggled to organise their supply chain and understand the market dynamics.
Figures from Statistics Botswana indicate that between December 2021 and December 2022, the average price of vegetables rose by 23.8 percent, the third fastest rising food item after bread and cooking oils.
“Batswana are still complaining about shortages and quality, so is this working,” Molebatsi said.
“As government, we also have to protect the consumer and if this does not work, we have to go back to opening the borders.
“If it is working, we may have to go back to SACU and WTO and say, ‘you can see we are getting there, please give us another two years.’”
For horticulture producers, however, the question of whether the ban is working or not is not as simple as government makes it sound. For many, the ban was a welcome challenge to invest in production while ring-fenced from the aggressive South African imports that have dominated the local market and under-cut local output for decades.
Producers, however soon found that moving from “farm to fork” was a Herculean feat, Botswana Horticulture Council chair, Mogomotsi Moatswi explained.
“I can confirm that since the ban, production has doubled and therefore the official data being given out is incorrect,” he said.
“The only problem we are seeing is the market access because the products are there, but the market is controlled by a few powerful buyers.
“Farmers are price takers and the situation also results in an influx of products in some areas and shortages in others.
The challenge cuts across the spectrum of farmers in the country, with the commercial producers in Pandamatenga equally complaining of the same. Farmers in Pandamatenga and Mosisedi, the country’s two most productive agricultural areas, have increased their hectares under horticulture in response to the ban.
Lilian Scheepers, CEO of the Pandamatenga Commercial Farmers Association (PCFA) said she witnessed the destruction of tonnes of rotten vegetables, after the farmer failed to secure price and transport arrangements with a retailer.
“The farmers don’t have the infrastructure to store excess and I saw with my eyes, tonnes and tonnes of rotten waste,” she said.
According to the PCFA, retailers use their buying power to dictate terms to farmers. Not only are farmers given rock-bottom prices, but the retailers reportedly insist that the farmers package and transport the produce to the retailers as and when the shops desire. In many cases, farmers have found themselves making losses the more they supply to retailers.
“There was a case where tomatoes were being sold for P9 per kilogramme, prepacked and transported by the farmer to the supermarket, while the supermarket was selling these for P22 per kilogramme.
“This is the same with cabbage, butternut, green pepper and others,” Scheepers said.
Another farmer who took the plunge and planted 400 mango trees, was offered a “deal” which would have seen him earn just one Pula per box supplied. Panda farmers say the terms being offered for their horticulture are unreasonable, given the escalating costs of inputs such as fertiliser last year and the fact that the area’s producers invest in their own power and water.
Local horticulture producers are making plans to cut the middleman out. According to Ratsela Molefe, chairman of Farmers United, the organisation has made advanced plans to open its own distribution centres around the country where farmers can sell their produce directly to the market.
Farmers United wants contributing producers to submit cropping plans before accessing the distribution centres, as a way of regularising supply in the market and ending the cycle of shortage and gluts that has affected the market since the ban began.
“As a farmer, your market is not the retail store or the vendor; your market is the consumer and if the distribution channel does not work for you, you have to change that and make sure your produce gets to the market.
“We are no longer saying “farm to shelf” but “farm to feed”.
“At Farmers United, we are even thinking of opening up retail stores in the country at some point even coming up with a franchise model for Botswana,” Molefe.
Horticulture farmers say even though the ban came a surprise, they have done their best to supply the market and will continue innovating around the challenges they have faced thus far.
Whether the months left and the contested data collected so far will be enough to make a case for the ban’s extension, remains to be seen.