26 Jun 2018

First National Bank Botswana regional agricultural manager, Ms Mmatsotsi Molefe says the agricultural sector continues to play an important role in growth of Botswana’s economy through food security and employment.

Ms Molefe said this during the official opening of the Voorslaag farmers’ day in Letlhakane recently.

She indicated that the sector therefore required financiers, entrepreneurs, policy makers and indeed the entire community to join hands and combat challenges faced by farmers.

“The farmer of today needs more than just rain and sunshine,” she emphasised.

Farmers, she said needed skills, access to information, access to land, finance and access to markets.

Ms Molefe stated that the bank embraced every opportunity to be the farmer’s financial partner in their business, and for that reason, she said they had solutions to cater for the needs of individual farmers, their staff and co-dependents.

FNBB, she said offered other innovative products such as agricultural term loans and working capital requirements, agricultural insurance, Mogwebi insurance as well as foreign exchange online.

She said FNBB worked at increasing knowledge and understanding of passion of farming.

She said they had invested in resourcing the bank’s agricultural department and were now a fully-fledged department.

The event organiser, Ms Beauty Manake an aspiring arable farmer said there was a challenge of proper market for smallstock, saying people bought only as individuals.

The aim of the event, she said was to do away with the impression that agriculture was about farming production only but involved the whole chain process from production to processing, packaging and marketing.

She also indicated they hosted a debate where children from primary and junior schools debated on agricultural issues. ENDS