Ministry establishes land committee for agro-business
Keikantse Lesemela | Friday November 29, 2013 16:32
“The committee has started working and we want to see many Batswana venturing into the agriculture business,” she said in response to farmers’ complaints about problems in the sector.
She agreed with farmers that even though the government has identified agriculture as one of the sectors with potential to diversify the economy and create employment, the sector is still unproductive because there are no policies that govern it. “Agriculture business is still a problem in Botswana because we don’t have the right policies in the industry, there is no coordination and there is lack of infrastructure,” said Nyathi.
She said the sector is still governed by the policy made in 1991. “This is an outdated policy and it has now been overtaken by events. We are still reviewing it and by early 2014 it will be done”. Nyathi said the Ministry of Agriculture has divided the country into Agro Economic Zones based on their potential as a way to improve the sector. She said the government has established an agriculture land allocation committee, which makes recommendations to the Ministry of Lands and Housing.
She said that although there is infrastructure in some areas, there is still a challenge of lack of transport to production centres. She explained that infrastructure development strategy for agriculture was finalised in 2010 but has not been implemented due to the economic meltdown. The strategy entails provision of roads, water, electricity and telecommunications in agriculture production areas. “The economic meltdown hindered the implementation of this strategy but right now, the government wants to implement the strategy in phases because it requires a lot of money,” she told farmers.
Before she spoke, farmers said lack of infrastructure and poor policies limit them and reduce agricultural production, which affects the country’s food security. Speaking at the recent Global Expo in Gaborone, the farmers said the industry cannot meet its targets with these problems.
Ajit Singh Ahuja, a vegetable farmer said they are limited in their operations because they do not have enough land. “The Ministry of Agriculture is not working together with Landboards. I have been a farmer for 32 years in Botswana and in all these years, I applied for land and I was never allocated. I have been to many interviews and my application was never approved. I ended up buying the three plots I have,” he said. Ahuja has 23ha and 53ha farms in Serowe and 14ha farm in Glen Valley.
Another farmer suggested that the government should work on improving the dairy sector as it is gradually collapsing. “We are interested in dairy production but due to lack of proper infrastructure and funds, we cannot do anything about it,” he said.
The economy of Botswana has historically been agriculture-based, until 1967 when diamonds were discovered. Since then, the contribution of the agricultural sector to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) has drastically declined from 40% in 1966 to three percent currently. Meanwhile over the years, citizens have been complaining about the country’s stringent land regulations. Local banks prefer to give loans to large scale farmers but with the difficulty of getting land, many are disavantaged.