18 Jul 2013

Assistant Minister of Agriculture, Mr Oreeditse Molebatsi has told Parliament that he is aware of challenges of row planting to tractor owners who do not have the required equipment.

Answering a question, Mr Molebatsi said tractor owners were addressed before and after the revised ISPAAD guidelines on the need to have the necessary and appropriate equipment in order to carryout effective farming operations.

He noted that tractor owners had also been continuously requested to acquire appropriate tillage equipment to carryout correct farming practices. He said the ministry continued to sensitise tractor owners to acquire the necessary equipment before the next cropping season.

Mr Molebatsi said farmers who used animal draught power were also encouraged under the new ISPAAD guidelines to plough and row plant and would be assisted by the programme. He said this included row planting using animal drawn planters, ropes and dropping the seed at regular intervals.

He said there was no alternative planting methods for tractor drawn implements other than the tractor drawn planters. He further told Parliament that in order to improve the yields, there was need to adopt the correct husbandry methods such as row planting. He said the ministry had improved on the hecterage ploughed and planted but yields had not improved proportionally. 

MP for Shoshong, Mr Phillip Makgalemele had asked if the minister was aware that the positive move on starting row planting under ISPAAD in the 2013/14 ploughing season was presenting huge challenges to tractor owners who did not have the required equipment which might frustrate small farmers from ploughing.

Mr Makgalemele also wanted the minister to state efforts of assisting farmers and whether the ministry had developed any alternative planting methods which tractor owners could use in order to deal with disturbing challenges. ENDS