Sustainable farming key to food security

Mmegi Editor | Friday October 17, 2014 15:06

The theme was chosen to raise the profile of family farming and smallholder farmers. It focuses world attention on the significant role of family farming in eradicating hunger and poverty, providing food security and nutrition, improving livelihoods, managing natural resources, protecting the environment, and achieving sustainable development, in particular in rural areas.

The latest African Union Report on food security in the continent, and particularly our country, is indeed encouraging. The report also notes that Botswana improved in international rankings, from 47th to 43rd in the world and No 2 after South Africa. This is despite the fact that we live in a desert country that has lately received low rainfall that comes very late in the year, coupled with rising temperatures, which reach over 35 degrees on some days.

The improvement of food security has been attributed to a number of factors such as imports from neighbouring South Africa, and government programmes such as the Integrated Support Programme for Arable Agricultural Development (ISPAAD) that were specifically designed to boost food production for local consumption, and export where possible.

The Ministry of Agriculture recently reported an increase in harvest from the previous year. This is an achievement that cannot go unrecognised looking at the fact that just over 12 months ago, the Botswana Agricultural Marketing Board (BAMB) was forced to import sorghum from Australia.

However, it should also be noted that food production in our country could also improve if our authorities took into consideration weather patterns in different districts. It has become obvious that maize crop often struggles to cope with the high temperatures in the country, and low rainfall. It is therefore important to identify and keep a database on which crops are likely to survive and yield harvest in, which parts of the country. Sorghum for instance can withstand high temperatures and low rainfall and therefore should be ploughed in specific parts of the country.  We admit that weather is unpredictable.

Other areas, such as Kweneng West, western part of the central district, and Kgalagadi district should be the hubs for beef production for they have plenty of grazing land.

It is also crucial that the AU enhances its food production strategies and assists its member states with expertise and financing where possible. The places that immediately come to mind are, The Great Lakes region, which receives good rainfall throughout the year. We are talking of countries such as the Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda, Rwanda, and Burundi amongst others. This area should be the breadbasket for the African region but political instability has posed a serious challenge to that aspiration. It is therefore important for the AU to restore peace and political stability across the continent, the peace, which will then enable inhabitants to engage in food production.

                                                     Today’s thought

                                   “Ask not what you can do for your country.

                                                     Ask what’s for lunch.”

 

                                                       – Orson Welles