Ispaad is wasteful political expediency

Many subsistence farmers rely on government assistance to produce crops
Many subsistence farmers rely on government assistance to produce crops

The Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) continues to waste our meagre resources on programmes like ISPAAD despite the fact that there is very little or no returns on investment.

According to the Daily News of September 13, 2017, at page 6; the Chairperson of the Southern District Council, Alec Seametso, informed councillors that arable farmers in the Southern District ploughed 105,770,008 hectares; out of which 99, 663,369 hectares or 91 % was by subsistence farmers while the remaining nine percent was from commercial farmers. According to the same report given to Council; the harvest yielded 53 metric tonnes from cereal, 595 metric tonnes for leguminous crops, 315 metric tonnes as oil crops and 117 metric tonnes as fodder.

In an unprecedented turn of events, the 99,663,369 hectares or 91% that was ploughed by subsistence farmers only accounted for 14% of the harvest; whilst 85% of the harvest was from 6,106,639 hectares ploughed by commercial farmers. This invariably connotes that government though the Department of Crop Production may have spent about P49, 831,684 to pay tractor owners for ploughing (if we use P500 per hectare). This figure would become even higher when fertilisers and pesticides are added, just in the Southern District alone.

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