01 Nov 2020

Botswana Red Cross Society (BRCS) intends to resuscitate backyard gardening to promote food security and livelihoods sustainability, says BRSC disaster management coordinator, Mr Onkementse Joseph.

Giving an update on BRCS food security and livelihoods programme, Mr Joseph said the society had embarked on a programme aimed at promoting community adoption of climate smart agriculture practices.

He said among the climate smart agriculture practices was facilitation of water efficient gardens through utilisation of grey water and rain water harvesting.

Mr Joseph highlighted that the programme was born out of realisation that Botswana environment was limitated on food production, particularly due to water scarcity, soil infertility and continuous droughts.

The programme runs backyard gardens across, which were watered with grey water and packages had been built to distribute backyard gardens to atleast 1 000 households across the country.

He said to address some of the challenges hindering food security in poverty stricken community, BRCS ran a horticulture training programme for people with disability in Tlamelong Rehabilitation Centre.

Every two years, 35 young energetic potential farmers graduated from Tlamelong and were provided with starter packs to start their own gardening.

He said BRCS had since the declaration of 2019/2020 as the drought season, provided at least 1 800 beneficiaries with food assistance for the period of six months. ENDS