28 May 2019

Kgalagadi District Council chairperson, Mr Meleko Thumpe has called on crop farmers in the Tsabong Sub-district to use crop residues to produce valuable byproducts such as livestock fodder in the face of 2019/20 drought.

Speaking during Tsabong Sub-district Council session, Cllr Thumpe said government spent a lot of money and resources to facilitate crop production through Integrated Support Programme for Arable Agriculture Development (ISPAAD), but farmers failed to produce yields on account of natural disaster phenomena’s such as drought.

Thus he called for more to be done than to let resources go to waste.

He posited that if farmers failed to produce yields because of draught, crop residues in their field should be utilised to make fodder for livestock and other byproducts for sale to salvage something from the field, rather than just fold arms and accept a loss.

He called for more research to be done on climate smart agriculture in the Kgalagadi region to enable farmers to produce quality yields and defy the drought seasons.

Draihoek/Makopong cllr. Mr Philix Matswiri also echoed Cllr Thumpe’s words, saying the Department of Meteorology should do more to help farmers in the region prepare for the next ploughing season by availing weather predictions for farmers to make informed decisions.

He said government spent money to purchase seeds for farmers and beneficiaries should work harder to complement government efforts of achieving food security.

Thus he called for farmers to have plans in place to counter farming challenges and produce good yields despite the odds.  
Councillors said this after Kgalagadi District principal economic planner Mr Ookeditse Boikepetse gave a report of the region, where he stated that Meteorology Department report reflected poor rainfall distribution patterns in the entire sub district.

He said the region had received poor rains, adding that they were anticipating drought year in this financial year.  

“The entire sub-district received below normal rains, therefore the department was anticipating drought, there was late rainfall in January therefore the crop situation was not any better.
A total 125 farmers ploughed 135.95 hectares.

The crops they planted did not grow as they experienced scotched and stunted growth for the reason that there was no rain and temperatures were too high,” he said.
Further, Mr Boikepetswe told councillors that on account of poor rainfall, there would be no harvest on crops planted and no crops recovery was expected even if rain could drop as plants had suffered major dehydration.

On animal production, he stated that there was no grazing or foraging area due to lack of rainfall, except in such places as Makopong, where rain had fallen in minimal amounts.

This he said led to extension workers grading the foraging area poor to fair across all extension areas in the sub district.

The livestock and small stock were graded as lean and most farmers had resorted to heavily rely on underground boreholes for their livestock.
In the year 2018/19, he said cattle off take had increased to 14 508 when compared to 11 151 in the preceding year, where  farmers sold their livestock to deal with drought challenges.
Furthermore, he divulged that 77 cattle were reported to have died in this financial year due to drought.

Thus he said government had maintained 25 per cent subsidy on livestock feeds and farmers had requested for the percentage to be moved from 25 to 50 on account of severe  drought in the Kgalagadi region.

Moreover, he said the range situation for wildlife was poor, but the animal condition was still good in wildlife parks following the recent rainfalls and some drank water from boreholes in parks.

He added that in the year 2018/19 all wildlife compensations where there was human wildlife conflict were settled and government had paid a total of P402 262 to farmers whose fields had been affected by wild animals.

Gakhibane cllr Mr Tumelo Pule called for Wildlife personnel to stand in vigilant during this drought year to ensure that they minimised wildlife migration to the neighbouring South Africa.

He said wildlife which migrated in search of greener pastures ended up being trapped in game ranges in the neighbouring country and never returned to Botswana.

Therefore, he called for strategies to be devised and intensified to ensure animals were kept within Botswana boarders.

Werda Cllr Hendry Louw called for department of wildlife to keep track of wild animals that were lost to other countries.

He called for a district tourism development plan and strategy to be drawn and be effected to create employment for the communities. ENDS