19 Jan 2020

In a quest to boost agricultural yield yet maintaining ecological integrity, Wilderness Safari Company is piloting a conservation agriculture project at Beetsha in the Okavango District.

The company’s community development manager, Mr Lesego Moiteela revealed in an interview recently at Maun that the piloted project was a sustainable farming practice that could increase agricultural output and at the same time maintain ecological integrity.

The company has already started bush clearing and its intention is to complete fencing of all the affected fields before the next ploughing season.

 He explained that they had clustered farmers and currently preparing their fields, adding that they intended to secure funds to erect electric fence to deter animals from destroying the crops.

Mr Moiteela hailed small-scale farmers in rural areas for their efforts despite the challenges faced due to sharing space with wildlife.

 He blamed the challenge for declined crop yields.

He said conservation agriculture entailed laying reeds under the soil to improve seed germinate. The reeds decompose into manure.

Conservation agriculture improves soil structure and protects the soil against erosion and nutrient losses by maintaining a permanent soil cover that minimises soil disturbance.

Mr Moiteela revealed that the idea behind the project was to help local farmers adopt new practices that increase yields without putting the land and water resources under further stress, adding that they would also link farmers with markets for their produce to ensure that they receive better returns.

He explained that initially, they used to assist farmers individually, hence they did not reap any better results and stated that clustering would be ideal as they would be working as a unit, thereby be able to tackle challenges they were facing.

“If farmers stand up for themselves and cooperate, issues of wildlife destroying crops in their fields could be easily solved as they will be more of them (farmers) at the fields,” he stressed.

The concept, he said, worked well in other areas, citing Sankoyo, where they once piloted it even though the issue of human/wildlife conflict thwarted their efforts.

Mr Moiteela noted that they had offered to support farmers once the project takes shape, noting that if farmers had any surplus, the company would buy the harvest with an extra 10 per cent to empower them.

The harvest, he said, would be supplied to their camps.

He stated that they had bought some milling machines for a group of women at Beetsha and planned to help them with marketing of their products.  He believed that the group would explore other opportunities to grow their business, adding that they could start packaging and labelling. Ends