07 Feb 2022

A memorandum of understanding (MoU) between Botswana University of Agriculture and Natural Resources (BUAN) and Agrizor will go a long way in increasing agronomy production through provision of necessary skills, research and technology to locals.

Speaking at the signing ceremony in Gaborone on Saturday, BUAN vice chancellor, Dr Jasper Rees said the MoU aimed at fostering agriculture development in the country using progressive inputs, tools and techniques by BUAN and Agrizor.

“As a centre of excellence we have a responsibility to match Agrizor’s efforts to boost vegetable production and economic development in the country,” he said.
To that end, he said the agreement would create value addition through agro-processing, which in turn would create employment.

Outlining BUAN’s scope of cooperation, Dr Rees said the institution would be responsible for providing the cropping programme for BUAN land parcels and allot land for field trials.
He said BUAN would provide soil, irrigation and agronomic expertise to land parcels and document information on field projects in collaboration with Agrizor and produce project reports.

For her part, Agrizor’s managing director, Ms Cecilia Mushininga said collaboration would enable farmers to produce high quality crops that were adaptable to the country’s environment.
She said as seed suppliers, they had interest in testing different seed varieties to asses which varieties would work in the country’s climate.

“As a result of this collaboration, BUAN would be able to offer us with land for our field experiments and provide project reports determining best seeds fit for the local climate.” she said.
Ms Mushininga said the COVID-19 pandemic had created pressure for Batswana to ensure that there was sufficient food to feed everyone and the collaboration aimed to cultivate a commercially viable agriculture that promoted self-reliance.

 Agrizor is a local based company which distributes agronomy products to farmers and retails shops as well as providing free agronomy services to farmers. ENDS