23 Aug 2020

The National Food Technology Research Centre (NFTRC) has been training an average of 120 individuals per year in various aspects of Food Processing and Food Safety since its incorporation in 1999.

Answering a question in Parliament on Thursday, Minister of Agricultural Development & Food Security, Dr Edwin Dikoloti said between 2013 and 2018, a total of 763 individuals from all over Botswana benefited from NFTRC’s ‘Training of Trainer’ Food processing courses.

NFTRC’s ‘Training of Trainer’ food processing courses include dairy processing, food packaging, nut and oil processing, olive processing, cereal milling, fruits and vegetable processing, meat processing and food safety.

As a result, he said for every individual trained by NFTRC, there was potential for several others to benefit from the same training at locations beyond NFTRC.

“It is therefore not easy to provide the full statistics of the total number of people trained in food processing in Botswana,” he said

Furthermore, Dr Dikoloti said since 1999 NFTRC had developed close to 100 different food products and families of products. At a practical level, each of these products and families of products represent a potential food processing business, technology spin-off or business start-up, he said.

He however said there had been a low or slow uptake of the business opportunities due to factors unrelated to technology development or knowledge transfer.

 He said NFTRC, referred its clients to other stakeholders, such as Local Enterprise Authority (LEA), Citizen Entrepreneurial Development Agency(CEDA), Gender Affairs, and Minister of Youth Empowerment, Sport and Culture Development amongst others for business and funding-related assistance.

Dr Dikoloti said many who succeeded in starting their businesses often continue to request and received technical support from NFTRC.

Further, Dr Dikoloti said in the past five years, 23 enterprises had received food product and processing related training and technical assistance from NFTRC in industries that include, peanut butter, jams and marmalades; fruit and vegetable Juice making (including Kgodu ya lerotse); pickled vegetables (including Atchar); processed and canned meats; biltong making; making of sauces, pastes and condiments; Dairy processing; Herbal teas, honey processing, indigenous beverages such as Motlopi, food packaging, oil processing, milling and biscuit making.

Furthermore, he said the services offered by NFTRC were publicised nationally and invitations to participate in the training were advertised nationally through print and electronic media, as well as through shows, exhibitions and Kgotla meetings.

According to Dr Dikoloti, presentations on NFTRC services had also been delivered to meetings of community leaders including councilors, saying the entity currently had a memorandum of cooperation with Botswana Association of Local Authorities (BALA) on working together for the empowerment of communities, particularly the youth through training in food processing.

As a result of the decentralised, nation-wide publicity of NFTRC services, the beneficiaries of the entity’s training were drawn from a wide spectrum of individuals who apply from all over Botswana, said Dr Dikoloti.

“I can confirm that of the 763 individuals trained between 2013 and 2018, 66 were from the villages of Kanye and Ntlhantlhe. While there is no record of any of the clients being from the other villages referenced in the question, this cannot be excluded as some may have used postal addresses that do not reflect such information,” he said.

He said the model used by NFTRC so far has been to focus on the provision of the technical and technology transfer related aspects of food entrepreneurship, and only facilitate or provide linkages to other stakeholder institutions with a mandate for business development, entrepreneurship training and funding.

“It is conceivable that not all the 763 individuals trained in Food processing by NFTRC during 2013-2018 have managed to set up businesses, and this is due to various reasons not related to the technical efficacy of the training received,” he said.

He said for the period under consideration, there was no data on the numbers of those who had managed to set up businesses and later closed shop adding this is normally discerned during impact assessment surveys.

Dr Dikoloti said the last Impact Assessment study on NFTRC services was conducted during 2016 and the results were disseminated at a National Stakeholder Workshop in November 2018.

He said at the workshop, it was revealed that most of the challenges faced by entrepreneurs and stakeholders that hindered business start-up and continuity included limited access to funding.

He said lack of opportunities for business incubations, limited access to business skills training, logistical challenges in accessing NFTRC at its current (single) location, limited opportunities to access markets; sourcing of equipment; and difficulty in meeting quality and safety standards were also identified.

Dr Dikoloti said many of the challenges faced by the Food Processing sector and food entrepreneurs, also applied to other sections of the agricultural value chain, including non-food agricultural production.

He said his ministry’s choice of interventions to improve agricultural productivity, value-addition and commercialisation is predicated on a holistic approach that looks beyond enhancing service delivery and efficacy at NFTRC alone.

In 2010, he said the government took a decision to rationalise parastatals, state owned enterprises and government departments with overlapping mandates in order to optimise utilisation of resources improve cost efficiencies and operational efficacy.

He said accordingly, Presidential Directive CAB 4(A) 2011 of 24 February 2011 directed the Ministry of Agricultural Development and Food Security to merge the operations of the Department of Agricultural Research (DAR), Botswana National Veterinary Laboratory (BNVL) and National Food Technology Research Centre (NFTRC).

He said subsequently, the National Agricultural Research and Development Institute (NARDI) was established through Presidential Directive 31(B)/13 of 28 November 2013.

The entity, he said had since been incorporated as a company limited by guarantee on January 13, 2015, and his ministry had since 2018 been hard at work to merge on BNVL the process of merging DAR,BNVL and NFTRC into National Agricultural Research and Development Institute (NARDI)

He said it was anticipated that the merger would be completed before the end 2020/2021.

Dr Dikoloti said under NARDI, the services previously offered by NFTRC, DAR and BNVL would be efficiently decentralised across the country to support stakeholders from the vantage point of cluster-focused, commodity-based regional research centers, specialist agricultural research and development innovation centres, testing and diagnostic laboratories, field stations, experimental sites research and development ranches and farms and agri-business incubation centers around the country.

NARDI,he said was set to consolidate the existing high-value public investment in the infrastructure, equipment and facilities at NFTRC, DAR and BNVL to engage in high quality, innovation-intensive and needs-driven research and development.

He said the entity would also promote the beneficiation of Intellectual Property and related intangible assets such as Botswana’s indigenous knowledge systems and agro-based geographical indications to enhance agriculture-related knowledge creation, knowledge management and knowledge dissemination.

Furthermore, Dikoloti said besides research and development, the entity came with a whole division dedicated to commercialisation and technology transfer activities across the agricultural value chain, to benefit consumers, farmers, industry, government and science in a transformational way.

He told Parliament that NARDI would be operating along key research thematic areas focused on horticulture, field crops, floriculture, industrial crops, ornamental plants, fodder, livestock production, animal health, agricultural and bio systems engineering (including irrigation systems, robotics, drone technologies to support precision agriculture); Food Science and Technology; Agricultural Economics; innovation, intellectual asset beneficiation, technology transfer and commercialization.

“I believe this intervention by my ministry will provide a holistic transformation and sustainable solution to most of the challenges faced by agricultural entrepreneurs and startups across the value chain in both food and non-food enterprises,” he said

Kanye North MP Mr Thapelo Letsholo had asked the minister to share the efficacy of NFTRC and if it was delivering on its mandate sufficiently.

He also asked the minister to state the number of people trained in food processing by NFTRC in particular, and how many food processing businesses and manufacturing startups had been setup over the last five years.

The legislator also wanted to know how many of those trained were from the villages of Kanye, Moshaneng, Ranaka, Lekgolobotlo, Ntlhantlhe, Magothwane and Kgomokasitwa. ENDs