27 Jun 2022

Mines have a duty to promote agriculture around communities they operate in to help produce organic food.

Vice President Slumber Tsogwane said this on Thursday during an official opening of Voorslaag Boteti Agricultural and Mining Exposition. 

He said since both mining and agriculture required land, clean air, water and human capital, they had a common responsibility to address human livelihoods as well as food security. 

He said mining also delivered infrastructure development, sayng opening new mines may also open new land for agriculture in places that were previously not accessible.

Mr Tsogwane noted that deliberate development of infrastructure along mining corridors helped grow agriculture. 

He emphasised that a mix of both mining and agriculture empowered communities. 

Botswana’s GDP distribution, he said, was measured from three variables being agriculture, industry and manufacturing. 

He indicated that in 2020, agriculture contributed around 2.11 per cent to the GDP of Botswana, 27.53 per cent came from the industry and 65.18 per cent from services sector. 

Mr Tsogwane stated that beef production was the largest component of the agricultural sector in the country and constituted 80 per cent of agriculture export while horticultural sub-sector contributed 40 per cent of the national demand and 60 per cent was met by importation. 

Government, he said, had taken a deliberate decision to close the gap by coming up with a long term strategy to restrict importation of some of agricultural commodities in the horticulture space such as tomato, carrot, beetroot, potato, butternut and onion among others. 

He mentioned that Botswana had been able to sustain the European Union and Norway markets because of stringent disease control measures and good animal traceability system, which traces beef from farm to fork. 

Such, he said, was made possible by introduction of Botswana Animal Identification and Trace Back System and commitment to compliance by farmers. 

Mr Tsogwane stated that the system had been extended to small stock sub-sector to facilitate small stock export. 

Agriculture and mining expo, he said, provided an opportunity to all value chain players in the agriculture industry to network, share knowledge and experiences. 

For his part, Minister of Agriculture Mr Fidelis Molao said the expo came at the right time following the ministry’s importation ban on some vegetables in a bid to encourage food retailers to buy from local farmers. 

He said such would develop the agricultural sector and value chain on food production in Botswana as more farmers came on board. 

He implored farmers to take the opportunity and increase production by utilising government’s Impact Accelerated Subsidy, which had packages of assistance in irrigation equipment, borehole equipping, connection to power or solar and protective environment, among others. 

Boteti, he said utilised 53.2 per cent of land reserved for horticulture, which needed to be increased to meet the district production demand currently standing at 40 000 tonnes. 

He said 39 horticultural projects operating in Boteti region had a cumulative production of 801.32 tonnes in the current season. 

He acknowledged the engagement of mining sector in crop production in Boteti, urging the mines to support farmers market their produce. 

Expo organising coordinator, Mr Mackay Nthabane said the objective was to help farmers share notes and get updates on current farming trends.ENDS