09 Sep 2014

The deputy kgosi of Moshupa, Kgosi Kwelagobe Mookodi has praised the Integrated Support Programme for Arable Agricultural Development (ISPAAD) programme.

Speaking in an a recent interview, Kgosi Mookodi said ISPAAD was one of the most efficient and effective means of increasing food production in the country.

He attributed this year’s good harvest to the programme saying people in Moshupa got a bumper harvest, compared to the previous year, something he had observed having traversed the ploughing fields in the area.

In addition to ISPAAD, the traditional leader said good rains also contributed immensely to a bumper harvest; hence Moshupa would on September 12 celebrate Dikgafela (harvest thanksgiving)

He underscored the need to throw Dikgafela ceremony saying it was in order to please God to continue giving people good rains and yields. Justifying the bumper harvest, he said some individual farmers in Moshupa got 1 065 bags, while others got 800 bags yet in the previous years, nothing like that was ever achieved.

Kgosi Mookodi added that yields were so high that truck and horse-carts were a common sight as they ferried produce to the Botswana Agricultural Marketing Board.

The Mothusa Kgosi himself got 72 and 10 bags of maize and beans respectively: “But a lot of other people got much higher than mine,” he pointed out. For instance, he said a certain farmer got P10 000 for selling water-melons and P17 000 for sweet-reed that were derived from only a few hectors. 

He said ISPAAD did well to elevate this year’s produce and appreciated government’s efforts in helping people to produce food as well as the traditional way of Batswana of harnessing the principle of self-reliance in injecting their energy to the ploughing fields to ensure good yields. 

He said they were going to celebrate through songs and poems and that, heavy performance artillery in the likes of Matebele-Makgaolakgang, Dikgeleke tsa Ngwao choirs and Megale traditional dance group will make the package for the event.

Preparations are at an advanced stage at the village’s kgotla for the Dikgafela event and people have started bringing in their various produces to the kgotla which is another indicator of a bumper harvest.

Kgosi Mookodi said they were expecting a lot of visitors and want to use Dikgafela event as a way of reviving and preserving culture.

The annual event which started in earnest in 2009 has grown in leaps and bounds over the five year period.

He therefore, implored the new generation to follow the old generation path so as to conduit culture from the latter to the former as well as to make sense of direction in life. ENDS