31 Jul 2022

Angola looks forward to collaborating with Botswana in the agricultural sector, to diversify its oil and diamond driven economy, Angola external relations minister, Dr Téte António has said.

Speaking in an interview at the Ghanzi agric show on Thursday, Dr António said Africa could feed itself and be self-sufficient only if African states combined efforts in agriculture and explored opportunities from the most efficient countries, to increase food production.

He said countries like Botswana had a lot to offer in terms of agriculture and had proved to be doing well in agriculture citing that Angola used to import beef from Botswana .

“Botswana could learn from us and we could complement each other,” stated Dr António.Meanwhile, speaking at the same event, Minister of Agriculture, Mr Fidelis Molao said the refurbishment of Ramatlabama Artificial Insemination Centre, currently being carried out would go a long way in producing high quality genetics and help farmers’ ramp up production

Earlier, Mr Molao said over the years, Botswana had experienced a decline in cattle population, attributing that to inadequate bulls (bull/cow ratio), frequent drought and poor livestock management /husbandry

He also said low calving rate, which he said stood at 56 per cent, was also a contributing factor. Ends