06 Dec 2023

 Botswana has secured market for its beef in China, Acting Minister of Agriculture, Mr Molebatsi Molebatsi, has said.

Addressing the beef productivity training symposium on Tuesday, Mr Molebatsi said the signing ceremony between the two countries would be done soon.

“One of the game changers is access to the Chinese market,” he said during a symposium that marked the end of a partnership between Botswana and New Zealand for beef productivity training known as the Land Based Training.

Mr Molebatsi said access to the Chinese market would be beneficial to the country’s beef industry not only because it was a huge market but also would pay handsomely.
“This is the readiness that we need for a market as big as Chinese market,” Mr Molebatsi said.

The training programme started in 2015. It was designed to provide hands on, practical and strategic cattle management skills. It also addressed knowledge gaps through demonstration of improved beef productivity practices to farmers, herders and extension officers.

Mr Molebatsi said the training addressed issues such as livestock nutrition as key driver for improved productivity. The initiative which draws on New Zealand’s comparative advantage in livestock production, aimed to reverse the low and declining productivity in the beef sector.

He said the training was conducted under two phases: phase one which was from 2015 to 2019 at Ramatlabama Training Centre, a total of 965 farmers, extension officers and herders were trained.
“From the total number of farmers trained I am delighted to inform you that women farmers constituted 30 per cent which is indeed remarkable,” he said.

Mr Molebatsi said upon successful implementation of phase one, government requested for an extension of the programme, which was approved and implemented. Its scope included rolling out the beef productivity training to other districts for the benefit of farmers nationwide.

He said productivity modules were also revised to include principles of grass fed beef and regenerative grazing for range land rehabilitation. He said 252 farmers were trained, which was a decline as it was largely affected by COVID 19 pandemic.

New Zealand High Commissioner to Botswana Dr Emma Dunlop-Bennett said during the past seven years, there had been many successes that came out of the initiative. She said the partnership between New Zealand and Botswana would bring success to the Botswana beef industry. ENDS