20 Jun 2018

Maun Administration Authority senior assistance council secretary, Ms Mogomotsi Seemule says Nhabe region has the potential to be a site for growing hybrid rice.

When giving feedback following a recent benchmarking trip to China, he said the hybrid rice project was once piloted in the district and investigations had indicated that it did not fail, but collapsed after being handed over to the community due to lack of commitment.

Some officials from North West District Council attended a conference co-hosted by the Human Provincial People’s Government and the Chinese People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries (CPAFFC).

The conference was held with the main purpose of strengthening China-Africa economic and trade cooperation and the CPAFFC invited the Botswana Association of Local Authorities.

BALA, therefore, extended the opportunity to its five members to the occasion, of which North West District was included.

She said following the bench marking trip, there was hope the council could re-group people and consider revitalising the project, which seemed viable.

She observed that there was potential for a research centre establishment on producing hybrid seeds in partnership with China, adding that they could also investigate the potential linking relationship with existing government seed research centre structures.

In addition, Ms Seemule said the region was at an advantage to have Okavango Research Institute and believed the institute would be interested to assist in conducting research.

She explained that the project was progressing well in China, adding that the country had indicated its intention to produce more rice to feed the whole world by 2050.

Currently, China is feeding half the world and the intention is to feed 60 per cent of the world in 2030 through the increase of rice yields.

Furthermore, Ms Seemule reported that China had expressed interest to partner with the district in trading of locally made products.

She said Ngamiland could take advantage to export its indigenous products such as Tswii, dried fish, weaved baskets and other products to the Chinese market.

If the partnership could see the green light, she said they would need to empower the communities to form cooperatives while the council establishes a central marketplace, which aimed to assist beneficiaries in packaging and marketing the products.

“We have the potential to export our indigenous products to the Chinese market through a partnership with the Changsha Agricultural logistic centre.

We can also establish an internet page to sell our products online,” she added.

Ms Seemule said National Food Technology Research Centre had also opened doors to assist in the training of beneficiaries so that they produce quality products.

The centre has devoted its efforts to ensuring the availability of safe, quality and nutritious food to Batswana through a number of activities in the area of food quality, development and dissemination of food processing technologies as well as food and nutrition programmes. ENDS