06 May 2020

Ghanzi District Council Secretary Mr Dick Kalantle has allayed farmers’ concerns that the council has stopped buying farm produce, particularly beans from them.

Lamentations, which farmers shared with BOPA recently, were that council had stopped buying beans from them and subsequently included the beans in a request for quotations to some COVID-19 relief food basket suppliers.

This move, they felt was inconsistent with government promise to buy farm produce directly from farmers, arguing that circumventing government decision would lead their produce go to waste, as they had no alternative market because of the ongoing lockdown.

Reacting to the concerns on Tuesday, May 06, Mr Kalantle pointed out that they never stopped buying from farmers but the buying process had been momentarily suspended because of shortage of storage space.

He said the process of buying had restarted and farmers could now start bringing their farm produce again.

“I admit that we erred because we were not supposed to have included farm products in request for quotations from our supplies,” he said.

He said though it was not wrong to buy farm produce from suppliers, it was wiser to buy directly from farmers so that their produce did not go to waste as government had promised.
 
Mr Kalantle said they discussed the matter with some farmers who raised this concern and explained that most of the said suppliers had failed to deliver beans because shops had run out of beans and were only available from farmers.

The council secretary also stated that they were experiencing shortage of beans in Charleshill sub-district and thus urged farmers to be ready to supply. ENDS