Zambezi agro-project gathers pace
Keikantse Lesemela | Thursday May 8, 2014 12:21
The project, which was proposed in 2005, consists of infrastructural and the agro-commercial developments.
Agriculture Hub director, Mmadima Nyathi told Mmegi Business that the project is in progress as the company started conducting researches beginning of March and so far they have engaged a local company to conduct the Environmental Social Impact Assessment (ESIA) study on the affected villages.
“The work is in good progress and we are confident that they will finish the work by the end of the year as we expect the project to kick start beginning of 2015,” said Nyathi.
Nyathi also explained that the local company Hartfield has commenced the ESIA around Kazungula, Lesoma and Pandamatenga. She said government completed proposals for infrastructure development in 2010 but it could not be implemented due to economic challenges in the country.
“The economic meltdown hindered the implementation of this strategy but right now the government says they want to implement the strategy in phases because it requires a lot of money,” she explained.
The ZIACDP is a three-pronged project whose first primary objective includes extracting water from the Zambezi into a 20,000 hectares greenfield farming area about 50,000 kilometres from Kazungula.
The second phase includes taking the water to the Pandamatenga area to irrigate the current farms or the new farming area that will be created.
The strategy entails provision of roads, water, electricity and telecommunications in agriculture production areas. The main objectives of the project is to develop agricultural production on a large commercial scale in the north of Botswana, thereby diversifying economic activities and developing the agricultural sector to be a significant contributor to the country’s GDP.
The project intends to encourage private investment in the agricultural industry and job creation.
It is estimated that setting up the water infrastructure alone in the project will cost about $780 million (P6.9 billion). The project involves extraction of water from the Zambezi into 20,000 hectares of greenfield farming area in Kazungula. The second phase aims to pump the water to the Pandamatenga area to irrigate the current farms or the new farming area that will be created.
According to figures released by Statistics Botswana recently, the agriculture sector was the second lowest contributor to economy in 2013, after water and electricity, to Gross Domestic Product (GDP) at 2.3 percent.
The economy of Botswana has historically been agriculturally based, until 1967 when diamonds were discovered although the sector has been identified as one of the areas that have a great potential to diversify the economy and create employment, especially in rural areas.