17 Mar 2015

The acting Minister of Agriculture, Mr Patrick Ralotsia, has assured the nation that government would do everything posssible to minimise the impact of the looming food shortage.

He told a press conference this week that his ministry was aware that in most parts of the country, crops were already showing signs of total failure due to stunted growth while others reached permanent wilting point due to the prolonged dry spell and heat waves that hit the country.

He, however, said they had warehoused over 54 000 metric tonnes of cereals at the Botswana Agricultural Marketing Board (BAMB), which could sustain the country for the next 12 months.

Mr Ralotsia said they would look around the region where they could get grain to augment what was in the reserve and that which would be salvaged in the aftermath of the dry spell and the heat wave to guard against a situation where the country would run short of food.

This was confirmed by the chief executive officer at BAMB, Mr Edison Wotho who said they had some reserves of sorghum, maize and beans in their silos and said they anticipated to get around 20 000 metric tonnes of sorghum from the Pandamatenga area.

The minister stated that in the 2013/14 cropping season, 417 000 hectares were ploughed and planted by 127 511 farmers while for the current season, the area planted was anticipated to be far below the previous season as presently they had measured 127 800 hectares from 28 000 farmers .

Touching on the livestock sector, the minister said about two weeks ago, they had a resurgence of Foot and Mouth Disease in the Kareng area and the outbreak was picked during a routine inspection for trade and subsequent surveillance carried out from March 10 to 15 had so far cumulatively revealed 59 cases involving three crushes of Maxebo 13, Mokgalo 11 and Motopi II with 35.

He said another revelation during further inspections was that in one particular crush, out of the 118 cattle inspected, only six had proof of vaccination against FMD from the most recent campaign translating to only seven per cent.

Mr Ralotsia said it had become apparent that, among others, the major contributing factor to the outbreak was that farmers were not playing their role fairly while FMD management should be a joint effort. “If farmers are not bringing their cattle for vaccination, then government efforts will fail,” he said.

Regarding the transition from bolus to ear tags, he said the ministry was making good progress as to date cumulatively 1 720 455 cattle had been linked out of the targeted 2 242 000 representing a coverage of 76.7 per cent.

He said so far all districts had finished the bolus ear tag transition except Serowe and Ghanzi, which they were targeting to have finished by March 31 this year. Ends