04 Aug 2014

Ngamiland community has been urged to venture into other sectors of agriculture in order to diversify the economy.

Maun prominent business man, Mr John Wellio said they should not focus only on one commodity, but advised them to venture into sectors such as crop production, aqua culture, food processing, manufacturing and property as well.

Officiating at the recent Ngamiland International Trade and Agricultural Expo, he said urged the community not to put all their focus on tourism projects, but emphasised the need to explore other industries, noting that the district had a lot of opportunities, which the community could tap into.

Mr Wellio revealed that the district is blessed with the flooding river of Thamalakane and as farmers, they must use this opportunity to venture into projects like horticulture fish processing to supply the local market and the country at large.

He also pointed out that the district has been hard hit by Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD) since 2007, resulting in people’s livelihoods affected as most depended on cattle farming and there was no market for them.

In addition, he said the district is in the FMD red zone but the community could consider food processing of beef in order to benefit from their cattle, noting that they could open tanneries and sell boneless meat.

He appreciated efforts made by the Ministry of Agriculture to control the disease and urged farmers to join hands with the government to control and contain FMD outbreak by doing 100 per cent vaccination.

Furthermore, he said the ministry is also doing its best to market Ngamiland cattle as this was indicated by the re-opening of Maun Botswana Meat Commission (BMC) and the commencing of live cattle export to Zimbabwe since 2012.

Mr Wellio also noted that the government is making efforts to assist the nation with good initiatives to uplift their living standards.

He noted that programmes like ISPAAD, help farmers to produce more food for the country and appreciated the challenge faced by the farming community concerning wild animals, which destroy their fields and even the disease control fences.

“We all understand that wild animals are doing good to boost our economy as most tourists are coming in large numbers, especially in our district, but we must consider how best farmers could leave together with the animals,” he added.

Mr Wellio commended the organisers of the show, Rachet Scapes Investment for considering Ngamiland to hold a trade and agriculture expo.

He said the event promotes the government’s agenda of encouraging the private sector to lead in the development and promotion of business.

For his part, the coordinator of the event, Mr Boyce Sekgoma said his company wanted to play a leading and active role in activating the birth of the economic and development platform, so as to contribute to the consolidation of economic and cooperation ties between Ngamiland district and the rest of the world.

He said that would be achieved through developing and promoting commercial, technical and investment promotions with local, national, regional markets, thus aiding foreign direct investment and local investment into the district.

Mr Sekgoma said the district is unique and blessed in that it boasts two UNESCO natural world heritage sites in Tsodilo Hills and the recent listing of the Okavango Delta, in addition to being a premier tourism and investment destination of choice internationally.

He urged the community to take advantage of the rare opportunity and use it to its optimal potential.

“We should use it to grow our markets as a district and promote agriculture and other natural resources to create jobs and business opportunities”, he added. ENDS