12 Aug 2018

President Mokgweetsi Masisi says beneficiaries of Integrated Support Programme For Arable Agriculture Development (ISPAAD) may be paid in accordance with their output in future.

Though still at an infancy stage, President Masisi said that unlike in the current format where beneficiaries were paid based on their input, the future holds an improved version of ISPAAD, where beneficiaries would be compelled to care for their fields with knowledge that the output could determine the ultimate monetary benefit from government.

Speaking during the official opening of Serowe District Show, President Masisi said that it was upon realisation that the farmers were not producing enough food to feed the nation that government embarked upon devising ways to address food security through programmes such as ISPAAD.

Although he conceded that the wholesale amendments were yet to be fully-fledged, President Masisi said the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security would in the near future implement the changes in the programme in order to spur farmers into being result-oriented.

Despite the looming changes, President Masisi said ISPAAD was a worthy programme that had, since its introduction in 2008, helped improve production and output amidst associated challenges.

He found that there were some farmers who only planted for ISPAAD monetary benefit after which they abandoned their production areas.

Consequently, the President warned that a larger percentage of ISPAAD benefits would be paid in accordance with output.

The President compared the current dispensation with hiring and paying for the services in advance without guarantees that the services procured would be rendered, hence the move to consider paying beneficiaries their dues after harvest.

As a way of improving farming and also ensuring that owners of production areas continued to benefit from such areas even when they were not active, President Masisi said government would consult with Batswana on how best they could cluster and fence fields to render production easier for farmers.

He said in such a clustering the fields would become one big production area comparable to Pandamatenga Farms that were renowned for higher production of grain.

The President said that ploughing upon clustering fields would not be time consuming and expensive since the physical demarcation by fences would be removed, yet farmers would retain their acres of land without losing even an iota of it.

In the process, President Masisi said the fields would be arranged in a way that would permit developments such as roads, water and electricity inter alia to the production areas, a move he observed would incentivise higher production.

On other issue, he said ISPAAD was not the only avenue by which government sought to improve farming, saying there were institutions such as Botswana University of Agriculture and Natural Resources (BUAN) which augmented the efforts.

“Going forward we must expedite change of land use in order to spur job creation,” the President said and added that government had since introduced integrated farming among a host of improvements.

He also appealed to farmers to practice innovative farming that would put the country in a good stead to compete on a global stage for lucrative European Union beef market against renowned beef producing countries.

He warned Batswana farmers that despite a myriad of procedures and protocols from the EU market, Botswana as the supplier of beef should comply to the demands, lest the country loses out on the rewarding business.

However, the President found that there were not enough livestock in the Central District that boasts a quarter of the country.

To drive his point home, President Masisi argued that the over 750 000 cattle and 520 small stock could not suffice for one lunch meal in China.

He also informed farmers of a lucrative small stock market in Zambia, saying government also sought to export to China and Saudi Arabia.  ENDS