01 Aug 2017

The Ministry of Agricultural Development and Food Security makes effort of training tractor owners annually in an effort to help improve the standard of farming and boost harvest.

This was said by head of the Department of Crop Production in the Letlhakeng Sub-district, Ms Kelebileone Moruise when addressing the Letlhakeng councillors recently.

She said the training, which is usually held in various places across the sub-district, entailed basics such as planter calibration and adjusting of ploughs.

Ms Moruise, however indicated that their efforts were thwarted by the fact that tractor owners normally send drivers instead even though there was no guarantee that such drivers would always be available throughout the seasons.

She said the challenge they then faced was that after training, drivers usually demand remuneration increment commensurate with the skills they had acquired, which usually leads to disagreement with tractor owners and often quitting employment.

“This then means that for the next ploughing season we will then have unskilled operators and we will need to train new ones again, which is counterproductive,” she said.

Ms Moruise also said they usually encourage field owners to always be available when their fields were ploughed so that they could monitor whether tractor operators were doing a good job.  She said this was so because tractor owners usually do a shabby job on a rush to another field on realisation that field owners were not around.

She also advised that field owners have to fill a form indicating satisfaction on the work done by tractor operators so that payments could be processed, but advised that they were not forced to sign if they were not satisfied.

“We have however realised that field owners think the form is just a formality such that they can come and complain to our office that tractor owners did not plough well for them even after just signing the form,” she said.

On other issues, Ms Moruise said some projects such as backyard gardens and layer hens were not doing well in some areas because of shortage of water

Ms Moruise was responding after specially elected councillor, Mr Keganeditswe Letshwenyo raised concern of lack of knowledge on the use of farming equipment by tractor drivers.

He said this was one of the reasons for low yields and the result of farmers often being forced to plough again.

Cllr Letshwenyo therefore called on the Department of Crop Production to ensure that private tractor operators were trained on using farming equipment, otherwise government funds would go down the drain.

Cllr for Salajwe, Mr Lopang Sebutlenyane had also suggested a review of layers and backyard garden projects as he said they were not performing well in the area. He cited some of the challenges as shortage of vaccines for the hens as well as high water bills that beneficiaries cannot afford. ENDS