08 Sep 2014

Practicing organic agriculture may grow local economies because people have resorted to buying organically produced foods, acting deputy permanent secretary for basic education in the Ministry of Education and Skills Development, Mr Peter Choto, has said.

When officially opening a four-day national environmental education fair on September 3, Mr Choto said the market price for such foods was  competitive because of their growing demand.

He said in the developed world, some businesses were certified to supply organically produced foods after conforming to certain set standards, and that could be another sub-sector, which might support economic diversification locally.

“In Botswana we have programmes such as the Back yard gardening which are already employing organic practices,” he said, adding that small scale producers might in the future grow the economy through the production industry.

The fair’s theme was: organic production; a strategy towards mitigating climate change, which Mr Choto said highlighted the inter-connectedness of the environment, society, economy and education. “These four aspects are interwoven; they cannot and they do not exist as distinct entities,” he said.

He further stated that the environmental education programme was in the curriculum which ensured that issues of the environment were well articulated and also gave learners a platform for sharing their thoughts and unearthing strategies to address challenges.

“Remember we are under pressure of meeting food demand and ensuring food security, and, that being the case, agriculture again becomes the only option of meeting such,” he said.

The PS said therefore that agriculture should adapt to climate change and be a solution to the challenges brought by it. Furthermore, he said convectional agriculture should not be abandoned because it provided solutions to ever increasing food demand.

When giving an overview of environmental education programme, the Director of Curriculum Development and Evaluation in the Ministry of Education and Skills Development Mr Ndondo Koolese said their ministry through environmental education, was committed to ensuring that learners were knowledgeable on environment issues.

He said the intention of the programme was to change the behavior and attitude of learners towards the environment in order to achieve environmental sustainability. ENDS