The numbers are in and it looks bad for the country’s harvest.
After an El Niño-ravaged cropping season in which rains in February dropped to a 40-year low, the country’s farmers are facing a steep fall in harvest.
“The country is experiencing the worst drought in 40 years,” a Ministry of Agriculture official said in response to Mmegi’s enquiries.
“Looking at the current situation, chances of the country having a successful harvest are minimal more so that most of the area planted is maize crop, which is susceptible to heat damage.
“Some crops such as maize have reached permanent wilting point.
“Cowpeas and sorghum, which have reached early maturity, will be harvested.”
Officials at the Botswana Agricultural Marketing Board (BAMB), the agency in charge of the country’s Strategic Grain Reserves, did not respond to Mmegi’s enquiries on the state of the silos. However, neighbouring countries such as Zimbabwe are reportedly searching as far as Brazil for white maize imports, as South Africa expects a drop in yields of at least 20%. Malawi, Zambia, and Zimbabwe have already declared states of national disaster because of the crop failures, while officials from the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development are finalising a countrywide assessment.
The state of affairs represents a baptism of fire for Temo Letlotlo, government’s new agricultural inputs programme, which debuted in the recently ended cropping season.
Temo Letlotlo, which focuses on farmers’ output, has been hailed as a transformative intervention for a sector whose contribution to the national economy has hovered below five percent over the decades.
The new support programme’s take-off was soured by the late onset of rains countrywide, which resulted in many farmers switching the crops they intended to plant, reducing their hectarage or abandoning the fields this season.
Figures from the Ministry of Agriculture indicate that government kept up its end of the bargain and pumped in the millions of pula it had pledged to support farmers.
According to the ministry, by February 7, a total of 41,620 farmers had been issued with e-vouchers for various inputs such as tillage, fertilisers, and seeds.
The e-vouchers covered 136,630 hectares and were valued at P352.2 million. Under Temo Letlotlo, subsistence farmers were issued with e-vouchers which they used to pay service providers for the various inputs.
Also by February 7, the National Development Bank (NDB) had processed a total of P28.4 million of applications around the country for 125 customers. Of this amount, P12 million for 39 customers had been approved for funding and P9.7 million for 16 customers had already been disbursed to farmers. The NDB is responsible for providing small to large-scale farmers with seasonal loans at prime rate to purchase seasonal inputs.
While the millions were pumped in, the rains did not play along. One of the worst El Niño events in recent years saw heatwaves hit the country in every month from when the cropping season kicked off in October.
The very definition of a heatwave shows the dire situation farmers endured in the past season. “For you to say an area is under a heatwave, you have to look at the average temperatures for at least the past 30 years, in that area,” said Charles Molongwane, principal meteorologist at the Department of Meteorological Services.
“So, if the temperature goes [up to] five degrees or above that average, over three consecutive days, then you are experiencing a heatwave.”
An update by SADC early last month estimated over 9,000 drought-related cattle deaths in Botswana, Namibia, Zambia, and Zimbabwe between October 2023 and February 2024. The SADC researchers also noted that the second half of the season broke records for consecutive days without rain.
“A record mid-season dry spell of over 30 days affected vast parts of the region including Angola, Botswana, DRC, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Zambia, and Zimbabwe,” the SADC researchers stated.
“These areas have received the lowest rainfall for the late-January-February timeframe in at least 40 years.”
The result for local farmers is a stunning drop in hectares. According to the Ministry of Agriculture, despite the Temo Letlotlo interventions, the area planted around the country in the 2023–2024 cropping season stands at 98,173.7 hectares compared to 272,802.82 hectares in the previous 2022–2023 season. The past season’s figures represent a drop of more than 174,000 hectares or nearly two-thirds of the amount planted or ploughed in 2022–2023.
As the BAMB starts tracking down the harvests committed or agreed to by farmers, it is likely to encounter tales of despair in the fields.
The small to large-scale farmers who received seasonal loans from the NDB were required to purchase the weather-based Agricultural Credit Guarantee Scheme to mitigate the risks associated with crop loss. Thus, their losses will be covered to some extent. But with most of the farmer categories under Temo Letlotlo requiring some contribution to the national Strategic Grain Reserves, the drought means the country’s silos will take a hard knock, especially in terms of maize. The Ministry of Agriculture says it is working hard to change farmers’ mindsets around what crops they plant, in light of crises such as El Niño and the broader climate change variables.“Most of the farmers prefer to plough or plant maize crop though susceptible to drought and high temperatures,” officials told Mmegi. “Farmers are, however, encouraged to adopt conservation agriculture techniques such as moisture conservation, planting short-maturing varieties and planting crops according to the agroecological zones. “(They should also) plant drought tolerant varieties such as legumes, cereals (sorghum, millet) and adhere to meteorological services’ rainfall forecast.”
The ministry said it would also fine-tune its approach to Temo Letlotlo, incorporating the lessons learnt from the inaugural season.
“It came to our attention that it will take mindset change to fully comprehend the Temo Letlotlo programme moreso that the programme is fully automated and it is a new concept altogether,” the ministry stated.
“We therefore intend to invest our efforts in robust public education and extension service.”
