11 Aug 2013

The Mookane Agricultural Service Centre, like all others countrywide, was established to bring services closer to the farming communities, including the Shoshong constituency, the assistant minister of Agriculture, Mr Oreeditse Molebatsi, has said.

Responding to a question in parliament from Shoshong MP, Mr Phillip Makgalemele, Mr Molebatsi said given the scarce resources allocated to the service centre, compared to the huge number of farmers in the vicinity, its coverage was limited.

He also said the ploughing and planting operations were also restricted to 20 a kilometre radius of the service centre for improved efficiency and effectiveness.

The initial plan to extend the establishment of Agricultural Service Centre to other locations with good potential for crop production, he said was curtailed by financial constraints.

“Mookane Agricultural Service Centre has been provided with limited resources to support farmers around it. The four tractors and associated implements allocated to the centre, are not enough to cover all farmers in the area,” he said.

As such, he said it was rather difficult to have a schedule of support and hence assistance will be provided as and when resources were available, he added.

Furthermore, Agriculture assistant minister explained that the current financial constraints did not allow government to establish Agricultural Service Centres in other areas with potential for crop production within the Shoshong constituency.

“However the government, under ISPAAD, assists by paying private tractor owners to plough or plant five hectors at 100 per cent subsidy for subsistence farmers throughout the country,” he said.

Mr Makgalemele had asked the minister how the Mookane Agricultural Service Centre had planned to give support to all agricultural activities in the Shoshong constituency given challenges associated with the size of the constituency and the multiple robust agricultural projects in the constituency.

In addition, Shoshong MP had wanted to know whether the Mookane centre could avail a schedule of support to the Shoshong constituency which they could adhere to, given the limited support it had provided to the projects in the constituency since it was set up.

He had also wanted to know whether the minister would not consider setting up a service centre to specifically support agricultural developments in the constituency, given the size of the agricultural activities in the constituency and the centre’s huge geographical coverage. ENDS