12 May 2013

Tractor owners intending to participate in the ISPAAD programme have been urged to acquire appropriate farming equipment.

Addressing central region farmers in Mahalapye, the Assistant Minister of Agriculture, Mr Oreeditse Molebatsi advised tractor owners to include planters, harrows, sprayers and fertiliser spreaders when purchasing tractors.

He said tractors that did not have such equipment would not be paid through the government initiative of ISPAAD. The assistant minister said when tractors owners plough for people without such equipment, they should know that it would be an agreement between the two of them and not government.

He explained that if tractors had the right farming equipment, the country would be able to produce enough food for the country. To address the challenges facing arable farmers and inherit high productivity of arable sector, there should be an adoption of new technology, such as the use of hybrid seed, use of fertiliser, weeding, row planting, primary and secondary tillage.

He further explained that ploughing and row planting would be P800 per hectare while harrowing would be P360 hectare. Mr Molebatsi also spoke against unskilled tractor operators who did shabby jobs, saying they should register with agricultural demonstrators so that they could be taught the right way of ploughing.

He appealed to people who used to operate tractors in South African farms to acquire licenses of operation at Central Transport Organisation (CTO) and assist the country in producing food.

Meanwhile, Mr Molebatsi said commercial farmers who were assisted under ISPAAD were encouraged to twin with subsistence or emerging farmers to mentor and assist them to adopt technologies that would increase productivity in their farms.

On a different note, the assistant minister advised farmers to take care of their fields by ensuring that the fields were weeded, birds scared away and animals kept away from the fields.

He warned some farmers who sub-divided their fields in order to benefit more saying that was cheating government. ENDS