No study yet to determine veggie ban effectiveness –gov’t
Mompati Tlhankane | Tuesday February 21, 2023 15:19
The vegetable ban came into effect on January 1, 2022 and targeted 16 vegetables such as onion, butternut, tomato, watermelon, carrot, potato, cabbage and ginger. The ban was intended to support local farmers, increase national food security by encouraging local vegetable production and improve horticulture competitiveness.
Answering to question in parliament this week, Minister of Agriculture Fidelis Molao said it should be noted that the purpose of import restriction was to stimulate the current state of horticultural production in the country with reference to the 16 vegetables.
Molao was responding to a question from Molepolole North legislator Oabile Regoeng who had asked the Minister of Agriculture to brief parley on the degree to which the imposition of restriction on importation of vegetables has to date influenced the country's balance of trade. Regoeng also wanted to know whether there is any immediate plan to add other food products in the basket of already restricted commodities and how significant the restriction has impacted on the food import bill.
In response Molao said there is no immediate plan to add other food products in the basket of already restricted commodities. “The intention has been to review the import restriction of the 16 vegetables over a 2 year period, and we have just completed the first 12 months,” he said.
The minister also added that the 12 months is too short to determine the impact of the import ban on the country’s import bill. “The impact will be assessed after vegetable imposition period of 2 years,” he highlighted. Recently this publication wrote that 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.
According to figures, the total number of horticultural farmers in the country is reported to 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 said to be scrambling to get accurate figures on how the horticulture has been performing.