28 Sep 2023

Horticulture farmers under the banner of Farmers United have opened a distribution centre, wholly owned by farmers.

Situated in Gaborone West Industrial area, Farmers United Distribution Centre is the country’s hope following the closure of Botswana Horticultural Market years back.

 President Dr Mokgweetsi Masisi on September 27 posted on his Facebook page in appreciation of the latest development in the affirmation that when the country closed its borders to imports of agricultural produce, it wanted to achieve food security for Botswana by Batswana.

 “I am happy to see Batswana venturing into farming & I want to encourage more, particularly the youth to take advantage of the opportunity that my government have provided,” the President posted tagging a Farmers United member who had shared the announcement on her profile.

Farmers United chairperson, Mr Ratsela Molefe, told BOPA during the visit to the Distribution Centre on Wednesday that although they were on their second week of opening, the number of customers coming in was satisfactory.

He said among those coming to buy were hawkers and individual customers who got to know them through word of mouth.

“The response has been very good,” he said.

Produce sold at the centre includes carrots, tomatoes, lettuce, green pepper, onions, garlic and cabbage.As per their model, farmers drop their produce and Farmers United takes the marketing responsibility and pays farmers on the agreed date.

He said Farmers United has also created a platform where it takes commodities to consumers through field markets.

As of now, Mr Molefe said, they had about 120 members countrywide who have created employment for about 350 workers in their different farms. At present, the farmers cultivate about 500 hectares of land if combined. 

He said opportunities for growth were abundant through the necessary support to fully use a total of 5700 hectares of land owned by their members.

Regarding the ban on importation of horticulture imports, he said it had helped the local industry to grow and called for its extension. 

However, he said, illegal importation was still a problem.

“There has to be hard-hitting punitive interventions for those illegally importing to deter them,” he said, saying it seemed the interventions were not good enough.

Though the ban had led to an increase in local produce, he said there was still more that the government could do to support the market.Such he said could include government enforcing its institutions to buy their produce from the market.

Further, he said, local financial institutions were still dragging their feet to support the horticulture industry.

He said Farmers United was also looking into tapping into value chain development through processing their produce.

“This is where the real value is, the processing of commodities is a low-hanging fruit for us as farmers” he stated.

He said commodities which could not find their way into the market would be processed as per their business model.Mr Molefe said their relationship with the retail industry was at individual farmers’ level, though they hoped the industry would in future come onboard. ENDS