06 Mar 2023

The new agriculture programme, Temo Letlotlo which replaces the ISPAAD will commence in the 2023/2024 ploughing season.

This was revealed by Assistant Minister of Agriculture, Mr Molebatsi Molebatsi when he presented the ministry’s budget estimates for the 2023/2024 financial year recently.

“The new programme is expected to be efficient and effective to allow the country to produce grain that is in excess of the national demand leaving the excess for the export market,” Mr Molebatsi said.

He said the new programme would have a full automated system that would enable beneficiaries to conduct all activities such as registration, leasing out land as well as applying online for grants and loans.

“The main objective of Temo Letlotlo is to promote household food security mainly driven by smallholder farmers and promote commercial production of grain by improving crop producer’s access to inputs and credits,” he added.

Again, he said the ministry intended to promote inclusivity in agricultural production by building rain-fed agricultural production systems that are youth, disability and gender sensitive as well as provide a safe production environment and further improve the social capital base by promoting collective bargaining by rain-fed producers.

Mr Molebatsi said the ongoing ploughing season had not been good due to late rains and inadequate moisture, especially at the beginning of the season and most crops were affected by the heat wave and the dry spell which occurred in December last year.

He further indicated that hectorage ploughed was expected to be low even though measuring of fields was ongoing and data not yet available.

“In spite of the low area ploughed and planted, expenditure on inputs however remains significantly high and I therefore plead to farmers to take care of any leftover inputs for use in the next ploughing season,” he said.

Mr Molebatsi also indicated that total area planted for the 2021/2022 cropping season was 321 183.93 hectares and total production was 175 940 tonnes while production from subsistence farmers was 98 249 tonnes and 77 601 tonnes from commercial farmers. Cereal production was at 94 446 tonnes which was 31 per cent of the national cereal requirement of 300 000 tonnes.

Meanwhile, Mr Molebatsi said as part of efforts to increase agricultural production and reduce the food import bill, government had recommitted to implement the Zambezi Agro-Commercial Development project in Pandamatenga.

He said a consultant had been engaged to undertake the feasibility study on the Zambezi Agro-Commercial Development project and was expected to be completed in May.

The project, he said would entail production under irrigation on 40 000 hectares of land and the project had attracted funding over P12 billion from the African Development Bank (AfDB). ends