Choppies commits to supporting local farmers
Monday, September 25, 2023 | 890 Views |
Ramachandran PIC: KENNEDY RAMOKONE
The mass grocery retailer is currently working closely with 1,800 local farmers who are actively supplying them with produce and have an additional 200 seasonal ones.
“We have active farmers who supply us with quality produce; the active ones normally supply us every two weeks,” he told BusinessMonitor. “We encourage local production and support small scale farmers and businesses whether it is dairy, manufacturing, milling, agriculture or any other sector.” Choppies’ initiative to support farmers, who are finding their feet in farming, comes after government’s bold move to ban the importation of 16 vegetables in January 2022. Since the moratorium on the importation on vegetables such as onion, butternut, tomato, watermelon, carrot, potato, cabbage and ginger, a number of Batswana have gone into farming.
According to both the acting director of Veterinary Services, Kobedi Segale and acting Lands and Agriculture minister, Edwin Dikoloti, the virus currently raging through the North-East mostly likely first entered the country during the festive season.From the “unprecedented” number of cases picked in testing last week, it is likely that cattle and other livestock could have been infected last year, without being reported.Animal health...