Agric Fountain aids farmers
Pini Bothoko | Friday May 6, 2016 12:07
During a recent field day organised by Tonota, Tutume and Masunga (TOTUMA) arable commercial farmers association, farmers applauded Agric Fountain for the farming services it gave them.
Agric Fountain is a private agricultural company with a mission to feed Botswana and offers services in grain trading, farm input supplies and agribusiness support services. When touring a number of fields that ploughed sorghum donated by Agric Fountain, farmers were optimistic of having a good sorghum harvest and a bumper crop.
The agricultural company donated a variety of sorghum called Pannar 8906 to farmers. Pannar is a sorghum variety that matures within three months and is suitable for ploughing in low rainfall areas.
One of the beneficiaries, Emmanuel Kwelagobe who ploughed 10.92 hectares of sorghum disclosed that he is expecting to
harvest 50 bags of sorghum per hectare.
Kwelagobe also ploughed 13 hectares of lab-lab and one and a half hectares of maize. He is hopeful of getting a good harvest despite his crops being recently attacked by the American bull worm that eats sorghum grains. Another farmer, Stephen Pillar who ploughed 70 hectares of sorghum said he is expecting to harvest more than 1,000 tonnes of sorghum.
Pillar said he bought chemicals and fertilisers from Agric Fountain to use in his field and Agric Fountain offered free advise on how the fertilisers should be applied.
Encouraging farmers, the director of Agric Fountain, Loeto Makubate said they have identified four clusters of rain-fed farmers and four clusters of horticulture farmers in TOTUMA who they are currently assisting.
Makubate said their mandate is to help Batswana produce enough food to feed the country. “We offer services like soil testing, consultation on technical advice and sell farming products and equipment,” said Makubate.
Interviewed on the sidelines of the event, Agric Fountain’s extension and technical officer, Obert Ndolo said they offer services to farmers with minimum charges.
He said that they have introduced high breed seeds of Pannar 8906 to demonstrate that they mature early.
“Our interest is to see farmers in Botswana being able to plough according to the required standards, have good harvest and be able to feed the country hence stopping the import of some foods,” said Ndolo.
Meanwhile, the Minister of Agriculture, Patrick Ralotsia encouraged farmers to consider adding fertilisers to their crops and use fertilisers that stops the growth of weeds for better yield. Ralotsia applauded Agric Fountain for the support they gave to farmers and urged them to partner with government in order to improve farming in the country.
“With private companies like Agric Fountain, as government we would like to outsource some services to you so you can help us produce enough food to feed the nation,” said Ralotsia.
The field day was held under the theme, ‘Integrating crop and livestock farming technologies, a captivating link in the wake of climate change’.