06 Mar 2023

The aquaculture sub-sector has the potential to grow the local agricultural sector and diversify the economy.

That was said by Assistant Minister of Agriculture in Parliament recently when he was presenting the ministry’s budget estimates for the 2023/2024 financial year.

Mr Molebatsi Molebatsi said it was on this backdrop that the ministry had developed the National Aquaculture Strategy while development of an Aquaculture Policy was also ongoing.

The assistant minister told Parliament that local fish production on the other hand was about 550 tonnes per annum, against the national demand of 5 000 tonnes. On other sectors, Mr Molebatsi said there had been a significant growth in the poultry sub-sector and the country continued to be self-sufficient in broiler meat and table eggs.

He said the initiative to resuscitate the small-scale poultry producers had registered six clusters while a moveable poultry abattoir would be constructed for Mmasebotse cluster in the 2023/2024 financial year.

On Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD), the assistant minister told Parliament that efforts to eradicate the disease were ongoing and emergency vaccination in the affected area had been completed.

He said clinical inspections were done in the surveillance zone and had detected no signs of the disease.

“FMD outbreak reported in August last year in the North East District, which had been one of the FMD free zones, is a reminder that Botswana faces a constant threat of FMD from neighbouring countries due to the unstable situation in the region,” he said.

He added that depopulation of 10 000 cattle from Zone 6B containment zone, was scheduled to commence this month while FMD prone areas would be prioritised in the erection and maintenance of fences to control the spread of the disease in the next financial year.

Presenting the budget estimates for the 2023/2024 financial year, Mr Molebatsi indicated that the ministry required over P1.5 billion and over P1 billion under recurrent and development estimates respectively.

He said there was a slight increase in the recurrent estimates of P7.9 billion from the 2022/2023 financial year’s budget allocations.

Mr Molebatsi said the development budget proposal for the financial year 2023/2024 reflected a decrease of P244 282 which was 18 per cent of the current financial year’s approved allocation.

Moreover, Minister Molebatsi stated that the ministry’s approved budget for the financial year 2022/2023 was over P2.7 comprising P1.4 billion recurrent budget and P1.3 development budget.

“The major components of the development budget were ISPAAD, LIMID and FMD control and the ministry’s actual recurrent expenditure as at February 28 this year was P1.4 billion which is 97.1 per cent of the warranted provision for the year and development expenditure was at 63 per cent,” he said. ends