10 Feb 2019

The Ministry of Agricultural Development and Food Security, chief agricultural research officer, Mr Douglas Machacha has called for promotion of smart agriculture by introducing climate resilient agricultural practices, technologies and inputs.

Mr Machacha said this during a climate consultative workshop for Green Climate Fund (GCF) concept mote development in Letlhakane recently.

The objective of the workshop was to gather ideas and appreciate challenges experienced by farmers to develop a P580 billion project that would climate-proof the agricultural sector through delivery of interlinked components.

Mr Machacha stated that to address the impacts of climate change, it was crucial to strengthen institutional capacity of government for climate change responsive planning.

Government, he said, should integrate climate change adaptation in development plans and policies.

“It is critical to enhance climate change resilience of farmers by establishing climate resilient rained agriculture, producing climate resilient breeds, climate resilient value chains and cross range land management programme,” he said.

Also important, he said, was the need to improve access to adequate climate information systems to support short, medium and long term planning processes.

He said weather stations and radars should be installed to improve collection of climate information.

Mr Machacha said climate change adaptation strategies were insufficient due to lack of resources adding that conditions of horticulture under the Integrated Support Programme for Arable Agricultural Development (ISPAAD) were not conducive enough to allow irrigation farming.

The intention, he said, was to dispatch the programme through government programmes such as Livestock Management and Infrastructure Development and ISPAAD.

For her part, ministry of agriculture official, Ms Chipo Nkomazana, said the agricultural sector in Botswana was vulnerable due to effects of climate change.

Rainfall, she said, was predicted to decline by three to nine per cent and temperature increase by 2.5 degrees Celcius in 2050.

Ms Nkomazana said the region was expected to experience severity of droughts. 

In the absence of urgent adaptation measures, the reduction in water availability was expected to result in overall decline in cereal crop production.

She said climate change caused reductions in agriculture productivity in crop and livestock sectors in Botswana, noting that small scale farmers were more vulnerable due to reliance on rain fed agriculture and limited financial capacity to adapt to climate change.

A farmer, Mr Seosenyeng Tsapo, was of the view that quality breed should be favoured than quantity.

Farmers, he said, were encouraged to keep climate resilient breeds as opposed to high breeds.

He said climate change had affected wild animals and were migrating in to livestock grazing areas. ENDS