18 Jun 2023

There is no reason why Batswana should be complaining about unemployment. This is Ms Basadi Molelekeng’s conviction.

A commercial farmer based in Pandamatenga, Ms Molelekeng believes that it is in tilling the land that jobs can be found.

Sharing her experience during Mookane Farmers Day on Saturday, Ms Molelekeng said no one would go hungry if all engaged in some form of agriculture, regardless of size.

“In the soil is where our dignity is because if you are not starving, you have dignity, if you have a job, you have dignity. In the soil, is where our wealth is,” Ms Molelekeng said. She said women in Botswana had been empowered , citing as example, the education system which, she said, was inclusive and reservation of special quotas for women in various programme.

Ms Molelekeng, who cultivates 507 ha and is the first commercial female farmer in Pandamatenga challenged women to claim their place in farming because they were hard working and the backbone of society. She said successful farming needed one to research and embrace technology because farming was a science. She said farming required one to be present at the farm and not only visit.

Another attribute for successful farming, she noted, was passion, stating that when things went wrong, a passionate farmer would always carry on.

Poor record keeping, she said, was what stood between farmers and accessing financial assistance adding that farming was a capital intensive undertaking hence productive farming required large sums of money.

She encouraged the youth to make farming fashionable and attractive, urging them to do away with the mentality that farming was a messy exercise.

Presenting on women as indispensable partners in the agricultural sector, Gender Perspectives director, Ms Valencia Mogegeh said it was possible for men and women to have equal opportunities. She said men and women were engineered differently hence it was important to know how to work together and complement each other so that they benefited as individuals and as a collective.

Ms Mogegeh said women’s interest in farming was unquestionable but said men possessed the strength to execute things individually while women had the will to work as a collective. Ends