The millions of pula that we have spent trying to produce food have gone down the drain, never to be recovered.
As we write this, thousands of hectares of ploughed fields are full of wilting and dead crops that should have given us maize, sorghum, millet and other grains. Instead our grain storage silos are empty while our normally dependable neighbour, South Africa, is reportedly importing thousands of tonnes of maize from Brazil. The country on which we rely for in excess of 80 percent of our national food supply per year has not been spared by the drought either and projects a considerable shortfall in its cereal harvest. Global warming is now a real and present danger of famine and sheer thirst as shortage of water also looms over the horizon. Times are hard when the earth is parched, and signs are that we cannot be far from such unforgiving conditions that are evocative of biblical times. Our dam levels are not a reassuring sight, particularly Gaborone Dam that has never filled to capacity in more than a decade now. We must start now to conserve the precious commodity that is water.
