16 Mar 2017

Government has adopted strategies, programmes and policies to promote agricultural productivity.

This was said by the Assistant Minister of Agricultural Development and Food Security Mr Kgotla Autlwetse during an on-farm genetic resources conservation workshop organised for farmers in Mahalalapye recently.

Mr Autlwetse said the country’s concern has been how to increase food production significantly to feed the population even as the effects of climate change depress the yields of staple crops.

Therefore, he said the optimal harnessing of plant genetic resources for the development of resilient and high yielding crop varieties in farmers’ fields was a mechanism for raising crop productivity.

He said this requires that the most useful heritable variations be sourced from traditional landraces and be used in developing suitable crop varieties.

He explained that the contribution of farmers to plant genetic resources for consumption and conservation purposes was appreciated and needed to be integrated into conservation efforts made by his ministry. Mr Autlwetse said plant genetic resources conserved by farmers constitute mainly traditional landraces, which possess a wide range of genes useful for quality breeding.

He said in Botswana, there were several remaining traditional landraces presently in the agricultural systems, some of which were conserved at the national gene bank at Sebele.

The assistant minister said the Department of Agricultural Research as the focal point for plant genetic resources conservation in Botswana, and as part the SADC regional network, established the National Plant Genetic Resources Centre (NPGRC) at Sebele in 1989.

He said NPGRC was responsible for collecting seeds and other plant reproductive material, primarily of cultivated plants and their wild relatives so as to conserve them in a way that they would be easily available and accessible to potential users.

The theme of the workshop was ‘Plant genetic resources conservation-safeguard our reservoir of traits of economic importance for sustainable development’.

Mr Autlwetse said small scale farmers in Botswana are mostly reliant on landraces of cultivated crops such as sorghum, millet, maize, cowpea, watermelon and bottle gourd. He said these valuable genetic resources have sustained generations of Batswana and allowed them to cope with the erratic rainfall and adverse weather conditions of the country.

Further, he applauded the SADC Plant Genetic Resource Centre for the support, adding that plant genetic resources for food, agriculture and horticulture were fundamental to global as well as Botswana food security. Mr Autlwetse said they were key raw materials required not only for breeding crops but to also contribute to sustainable grassland and forest agriculture through enhanced resilience to environmental influences.
 

For his part, the director of Department of Agricultural Research Dr Pharoah Mosupi said the mandate of NPGRC was to collect and conserve cultivated crops, their wild relatives and other wild species.

Dr Mosupi said these species provide raw material for present and future use by plant breeders and farmers to improve the quality and productivity of crops. He noted that they were essential in future for providing valuable traits to meet changing climatic conditions or outbreaks of diseases.

He said they also serve as a backup for any accidental loss of species due to veld fires, indiscriminate harvesting, developments and droughts.

Therefore, Dr Mosupi urged farmers to submit and recognize the great value of plant genetic resources conservation, especially conservation of traditional landraces on farm to protect them from disappearing from their farming system. ENDS