Sunflower oil plant for Botswana

The plant is likely to be in the Pandamatenga area, where most of the country's sunflower harvest comes from, he told members of Ntlo ya Dikgosi yesterday. Mphathi said that currently, sunflower harvest from Botswana is taken across the border to South Africa, where it is refined into cooking oil and returned to the country for use in schools and clinics. 

The opening of a local plant will thus help create jobs for locals and give impetus to government's diversification drive, he said.The BAMB CEO urged dikgosi to encourage their merafe to strive for more harvest He said the organisation buys and sells between 25,000 and 35,000 metric tonnes of grains per year. This, he said amounts to only 10 percent of national demand.  He said the state has storage facilities for more than 100,000 metric tonnes of grains.