09 Dec 2019

The Assistant Minister of Agriculture Development and Food Security, Ms Beauty Manake has said government will through the transformation agenda develop agriculture business to create opportunities for employment and food reliance.

Debating the State-Of-Nation-Address on December 5, she said the ministry was working on reviving honey value chain for uptake by Batswana and partnerships with private companies. She said negotiations were ongoing, adding that the honey industry value chain was worth 215 billion Euro and that some Batswana had started tapping into the market by producing honey products such as wine.

Ms Manake who is also specially elected MP said government intended to avail what the market required for Batswana to fit holistically in the agriculture sector. Thus, she appealed to the youth to venture into agriculture market information and value chains in the sector. “We want them to participate in design and packaging of agriculture products and e-marketing of agriculture products and their end products,” she said. She said government was also in the course of reviewing some of the best initiatives implemented that had not made the required impact such as Integrated Support Programme for Arable Agricultural Development (ISPAAD) and Livestock Management and Infrastructure Development (LIMID). 

Ms Manake also said horticultural development remained one of the green diamonds that had not been fully explored. She said there was a great potential in fruit tree production and its value chain which Batswana should tap into.

She further stated that the National Agricultural Processing Institution in Selibe Phikwe was a benchmarking initiative that should give Batswana hope in food processing prospects.

“This is one of the impactful innovations that business people in food processing can learn from,” she stated. Ms Manake also said land utilisation in rural areas should be looked into as vast fertile land which had great potential to create wealth in the agriculture sector, remained idle. 

With regards to dairy farming, she said the government was reviewing the industry that had a value chain that could provide a lot of jobs. “We want to customise it to local communities for them to take it up and have a sustainable market,” she said.

She further noted government’s commitment to investing in agriculture research and development, adding that the Botswana Vaccine Institute (BVI) was one such successful product of research and development with international partners.

“To date, it remains a diamond within the agriculture sector due to different innovation it has patented. It is one of the few in the world which produces Foot and Mouth Disease vaccines and BVI remains the only supplier in Africa,” she stated. ends