15 Jun 2020

Assistant Minister of Agriculture Development and Food Security, Ms Beauty Manake has reiterated the need to allocate more land for the Pandamatenga commercial farms to produce more food for the country.

Speaking in an interview after touring the farms recently, she said Pandamatenga commercial farms in Chobe had the potential to grow the economy.

In addition, she noted the farms had a balanced food security project of introducing other varieties of crops apart from the traditional crops such as sorghum and beans. 

The new crops include wheat, sugar beans, sesame seeds which some farmers in the area recently introduced to diversify their crop production.

Ms Manake, who was accompanied by other Assistant Ministers, Meers Karabo Gare of Investment, Trade and Industry and Machana Shamukuni of Tertiary Education, Research Science and Technology, also toured a coffee production farm called Hills Agrochemicals.

The farm, which started in 1999 by Mr Hill van Schalkwyk, also doubles  as a chemical and fertilizer supplier was proving to be a viable project as the coffee produced from it was on high demand, not only in Botswana but the world over.

Business assistant at the farm, Ms Tersia Schmidt told ministers that the farm started with 300 coffee trees in 2015. She said these included a variety of coffee trees originating from Ethiopia and Kenya to produce Arabica coffee.  

Ms Schmidt explained that Arabica coffee was the best quality coffee the world over and had the best market adding that the farm would be starting its full production in 2021. 

“We are currently in year five and we are starting to get into production’” she added.

Explaining the process, she said  the fruits of the tree were harvested when fully red and dried up before they being sorted according to quality and later get roasted and grinded into fine coffee.

For his part, the chairman of the Pandamatenga Commercial Farms, Mr Ryan Neal said they had expected huge harvest this year, but their dreams were shattered by the quelea birds which destroyed some of their crops, especially sorghum.

He explained over a 100 hectares was destroyed by the birds which originated from Zimbabwe, saying such birds were difficult to control because where they originated was a nature reserve.

Mr Neal said as farmers, they were also looking at various ways of protecting their crops such as the use of falcon birds to scare away the quelea birds. 

He said another option that would be introduced was the use of drones.

Mr Neal applauded the continued support from government to fight the birds during the difficult period of another serious challenge of COVID-19.

He however, explained that despite the challenges, they expected to harvest 6 000 tonnes of sorghum and 15 000 tonnes of beans during the harvesting season adding that 80 per cent of sorghum produced in Botswana was from Pandamatenga.

Mr Neal said there were some bilateral agreements between Botswana and Zimbabwe to come up with a solution of how to work together to control the birds.   

Another farmer Mr Hermann Venter explained that the damaged caused by the quelea birds amounted to over 700 tonnes of sorghum because there were some farms that had been destroyed but the amount of damage was difficult to calculate.

He also said the association had already taken a decision to grow maize as one of the solutions to control the birds.

Deputy permanent secretary (support services) in the agriculture ministry, Mr Thabang Boshoma indicated in an interview that the main objective of the tour, which was prompted by the coffee tea production farm, was also to get firsthand operations of the Pandamatenga farms and find ways to increase its production on cash crops. 

He explained that Botswana continued to import a lot of cash crops that include wheat, sugar beans and sesame seeds products adding that the whole idea was to try and commercialise cash crops and enhance food security.  

The ministers also toured a potato farm before having a brief stop-over at CH5, a huge flood plain land commonly known as Kakolwane plains, which maybe be considered for future expansion of the Pandamatenga commercial farms. ends