09 Feb 2016

The Botswana Institute for Technology Research and Innovation (BITRI) hosted a workshop on climate-smart agriculture in Tsabong recently.

Professor Nyaladzi Batisani, a researcher at BITRI, said due to unpredictable climate changes, farmers had to practise climate-smart agriculture to produce good yields.

He told agricultural demonstrators from the Tsabong catchment area  that inculcating climate-smart agriculture could not be a success without their participation as they worked closely with farmers and knew how they could be assisted to adopt modern ways of farming.

“The project seeks to rally the district to increase farmers’ adoption of new methods by focusing on their capacities,” he said.

He pointed out that climate change had brought about prolonged droughts, therefore he advised that the situation could be reversed through climate-smart interventions such as natural resource management as well as crop and livestock production systems.

Professor Batisani said a lot of research had been done to improve crop varieties and to better farming methods.

For their part, demonstrators underscored the need for capacity building workshops to be organised for farmers because most them were still using old methods of farming, hence the annually declining yields.

They called for training on climate-smart agriculture and the use of drought-resistant varieties. They observed that some farmers use tools, which have been proven to be unsuitable for dry farming.

Mr Nijel Modisaemang, an agricultural demonstrator, said they had to encourage farmers to form production groups to work fast and finish ploughing before the rainy season ended.

He said there was need to establish service centres for seeds and machinery so that farmers could get them on time. ENDS