27 Aug 2014

The delivery of Livestock Management and Infrastructure Development (LIMID) in the South East District is hampered by shortage of goats.

Speaking during South East District full council session on August 26,  the district agricultural officer, Ms Monia Mfolwe said the shortage, however, created a market opportunity for those interested in small stock farming.

“This is a business opportunity that needs to be ventured into by Batswana,” Ms Mfolwe informed the council. She pointed that efforts to solicit goats for LIMID beneficiaries from neighbouring districts had not been successful as those districts were also faced with the same challenge.

Hence, she made an appeal to those with the capacity to sell their goats to seize the opportunity and sell to LIMID beneficiaries. Earlier when presenting the district development committee report, principal district development officer, Ms Kgomotso Kesianye told the council that the district continued to be phased with huge backlog of projects due to unavailability of small stock within the district.

She said out of the total 617 LIMID projects approved for funding, only 308 projects have been implemented. “Though this is a major challenge, it however presents an opportunity for enterprises to be created within this sector to market availability indicated by this challenge,” she added.

Nevertheless, Ms Kesianye said the department will continue to deploy strategies aimed at buying small stock in bulk as well as import from neighbouring districts as an effort to ascertain that beneficiaries are assisted on time.

Still on LIMID, Ms Mfolwe informed the council that there is no how her office would not treat goats from the Kgalagadi district for heart water diseases.

However she said if it is true that some goats have not been treated, it would only be that beneficiaries had not informed her office about the origin of the small stock. Ends