Let us go and plough

Editor | Wednesday January 27, 2010 00:00

These rains, according to the forecast will be experienced in most parts of the country.
The rains have come at the right time. While pastures had not been depleted from the last rains, it is the water sources that were becoming a huge source of concern to most farmers.

In a country that is dependent on open water sources for most of its herds it was critical that the rains come before our livestock could perish from thirst.

Agricultural experts say it is not too late to plough most crops even if we were to start ploughing now and we believe that farmers will take advantage of the situation and plough so that we can have a plentiful harvest this year.

This country is faced with a mammoth task of feeding its nationals and all people who live in it by importing food stuff including fruits and vegetables. These come at a great cost. Because we do not produce enough food that could go around, the end result is that food in Botswana is very expensive and this compounds the poverty situation.

We believe that this situation could be turned around. Botswana could in a short time be turned from food dependenct into a self sufficient country. Of course this transformation will mean taking very deliberate plans and policies in changing people's mindsets, improving agricultural techniques, introduction of appropriate technologies including even using on a wider scale farm implements such as fertilisers and irrigation of bigger farms.

This could be the ideal in the mid-term, but at the moment we could still do a lot by raising productivity on our farms. Individual farmers have to take responsibility and plough, and not leave farms lying idle.

There is of course an incentive in the sense that government pays for up to five hectares in ploughing costs, in every small farm's field. This in the long run is not sustainable, but it is a good start that could be used to induce the huge interest in farming that Batswana have. Of course there are other structural programmes like shortage of tractors and other implements such as fertilizers but these are not insurmountable. The biggest challenge is farmers taking responsibility that they own their farms and they should plough and man them, by weeding, scaring birds away, harvesting and ensuring there is good storage.

While government will be expected to lead farmers into charting new grounds we as the public have a duty to ensure that we revive the spirit of self- reliance. Without farmers taking responsibility all the good rains will go to waste and so will our agriculture. The consequences of course will be poverty and dependence on other nations who do not have a duty to be charitable to us.
This is our challenge.

                                          Today's thought
Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four hours sharpening an axe.

                                           - Abraham Lincoln