Emptying shelves put pressure on vegetables ban

The reason for this ban, as communicated by government then, was to improve the local farming supply chains and to drive the country towards food self-reliance while protecting the embryonic agricultural sector from competition.

The decision to constrict vegetable inflow into the country came to many as a surprise, portraying the image of overly reliant Botswana finally becoming resilient, after the country has had a trade track record of being an overall net exporter for most of her commodities.