29 Jun 2021

The Botswana University of Agriculture and Natural Resources (BUAN) has reportedly embarked on a massive drive to train young people to venture into agriculture as business, to revolutionise the industry.   

BUAN Vice Chancellor, Dr Jasper Rees told an agricultural community service day gathering in Metlobo on Saturday that to bring new brains, technology and knowledge into the agricultural sector, they imparted skills to the youth through graduate entrepreneurship programmes.

The institution, he said supported business start-ups through a graduate entrepreneurship programme, which funded and incubated graduates of the university to operate commercial agricultural and natural resources projects under the guidance and mentorship of university academics and the business community.  

Dr Rees said BUAN would rename the programme, IncuHive and it would be launched in the near future, to show that it was an incubator and hive of agricultural businesses.

He said those who aspired to go into agricultural businesses, would enroll into the programme, which would allow them to create new jobs.

He said when the university and the business community worked together, they brought new ideologies into the agricultural sector, with the potential to transform it and the economy.

Meanwhile, Citizen Entrepreneurial Development Agency (CEDA) Kanye branch manager, Ms Ogaufi Tafa said the agency provided financial assistance for both starting businesses and those wishing to expand their business operations. She said the loans ranged from P500 to P50 million at subsidised interest rates.

Ms Tafa said this was meant to be a soft loan for citizen entrepreneurs wishing to start, acquire or expand business operations. 

She said government would continue to explore avenues of empowering Batswana and facilitating their participation in the growth and diversification of the economy.

In this regard, she said sectors such as agro-processing, manufacturing, agriculture, creative, industry, tourism, mining, technology and innovation, as well as energy and construction had been identified as those that could significantly add value to the country’s economic diversification and job creation efforts, hence being listed as ‘special sectors’ under CEDA’s new revised guidelines.

The new guidelines, she said, were therefore central and relevant for pushing national priorities like Citizen Economic Empowerment, import substitution and most importantly, reducing the country’s dependence on its neighbours for trade. Ends