27 Sep 2023

There has been significant emphasis on the neccesity to allocate substantial investments towards research and development in order to effectively tackle the challenges encountered by the agricultural sector.

 This was said  by the Minister of Agriculture Mr Fidelis Molao when opening the 8th All Africa Conference on Animal Agriculture in Gaborone, September 26.

He said the African Development Bank report of 2022 stated that most African countries only 0.24 per cent of their GDP on research and development while global average stood at 1.7 per cent.

This, he said called for a paradigm shift by all countries to improve their funding on research and development.

“Africa must generate her own technologies that will increase local food production and reduce over reliance on food produced for other continents. We have the resources, we have the brains,” he said.

He also appealed to the private sector to come on board and fund research activities in various research institutions across Africa noting that most African governments could not do it alone due to other competing national activities.

Minister Molao said Africa should produce food to feed its ever growing population adding that this could be achieved by harnessing the power of research. 

Held under the theme: Sustainable African Animal Agriculture: Challenges and Future Prospects, Mr Molao said for the sector to be able to attract more funding towards research and development it was necessary to carry out works with tangible results that would also guide government in funding research.

He advised countries to share their research out comes and collaborate on measures aimed and doing away with Africa perennial challenges.

Mr Molao said the National Agricultural Research and Development Institute (NARDI) was established in 2015 as a research and technology organ, mandated to develop quality, innovation, and intensive and need driven technology for the benefit of farmers and stakeholders.

In addition, Mr Molao said agriculture was universally prioritised to uplift the vulnerable population groups such as youth and women. 

As it was the case in other developing countries, Mr Molao said the majority of Botswana’s population were in the rural areas directly and indirectly depending on agriculture for their livelihoods.

Therefore, he said government has engaged in various programmes to meaningfully transform the sector to create employment and sustain livelihoods.

Botswana and many other countries were slowly recovering from the effects of COVID-19 and other global challenges such as climate change and animal diseases that were disrupting economic activities.

Mr Molao said agricultural professionals were the critical component of the agricultural value chain as they provided indispensable support to agricultural production in areas such as academia and research.

He said the sector needed professionals with a good attitude and appropriate training to apply their knowledge to come up with practical solutions to agricultural problems.

Therefore, Mr Molao said the conference provided an opportunity to evaluate performance of the agricultural sector and come up with practical solutions aimed at improving livestock productivity and other related activities.

He said the sector in Africa would not continue to ignore adaptation of new technologies to build strategic collaborations aimed at enhancing resilience and improving productivity. 

As such, he advised the conference to come up with solutions to improve food security in Africa.

However, Mr Molao said trans-boundary diseases such as FMD and cattle lung diseases were a serious deterrent to interventions aimed at growing the sector.

Mr Molao said Botswana and other African countries were grateful to the World Organisation of Animal Health (WOAH) and partners such as Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) for their continued support in strengthening government and agricultural institutions. Ends