08 Jul 2021

Okavango Craft Brewery has potential to reach a wider market locally and internationally.

The Assistant Minister of Agricultural Development and Food Security,  Ms Beauty Manake,  said this when she visited the brewery in Maun on Tuesday.

Ms Manake said the Okavango Craft Brewery could be developed and bear a Botswana pride mark as well as being availed for tourism industry.

She said billions worth of alcohol was imported into the country, something that showed alcohol had potential to thrive locally.

Ms Manake, therefore, urged the brewery to use services of different financiers and partnerships to further develop their product.

The Okavango Craft Brewery restaurant and bar general manager, Mr Jonathan Pierce, said the company started operations in February this year.

Mr Pierce said Okavango Craft Brewery beer, which was the second largest craft beer in the country, was a brain child of Eco-Exist Founders, Mr Graham McCulloch and Ms Anna Songhurst who had a project that promoted co-existence between humans and wildlife in the Okavango.

He said the brewery purchased and used millet from farmers in the Okavango, who were assisted by the eco-exist project.

He noted that millet was was less attractive to elephants therefore farmers managed to produce better produce in the midst of human-wildlife conflict.

Mr Piece said the challenge was that craft brewery incepted operation during the period of COVID-19 therefore was affected by the ban on sale of alcohol.

Head of brewery, Mr Murray Stephenson, said Okavango Craft Brewery beer was so far available in Maun and Kasane while it was in the process to be available for sale in Gaborone.

Mr Stephenson also said the end result of the craft beer process was given back to farmers to be used as manure for cattle and poultry.

Department of crops production mechanization officer, Mr Thapelo Otisitswe, said Okavango Craft Brewery was showed value chain in agriculture.

Mr Otisitswe said millet used in the production was produced by a cluster of farmers at Eretsha.

He said the brewery offered farmers better prices for their millet.

Mr Otisitswe said 16 tonnes of millet had been bought from the farmers so far.

 

The Eco-Exist organisation, he said, had assisted farmers with an electric elephant proof fence for their millet fields while Wilderness Safari Company provided farmers with machinery and tractors for farming. ENDS