11 Dec 2013

Farmers throughout the country have been urged to take advantage of the recent rains during the third week of November and to date marking the onset of the 2013/14 cropping season.

The assistant minister of Agriculture, Mr Oreeditse Molebatsi said at a media briefing on Tuesday, December 10 that though rains came a bit late reports indicate that most parts of the country have received appreciable amounts of rain enabling farmers to start the cropping period.

Mr Molebatsi said comparatively the 2012/2013 ploughing and planting was better as it started earlier by end of October and said during this period 451 farmers had planted a total of 1 313 ha whereas this year planting has just started and it is anticipated that this will continue as rainfall continues to be reported in most parts of the production areas.

He said this year 2095.6 tons of seed were purchased for free issuance to farmers and 5240 tons of fertilizer has been issued out to farmers and said this year his ministry made a good progress as 78.9 per cent of the required seed has been dispatched to the districts and 38.7 per cent of that have been issued to 34 025 farmers as compared to the previous season where only 41 per cent of the required seed was dispatched to districts and only 21 per cent issued to 25 312 farmers.

The assistant minister said a total of 5098 tons of fertilizers out of the 5240 tons required for this season has been dispatched to districts and 30 per cent issued to 3 711 farmers as compared to the previous season whereby 12 per cent was dispatched to districts and 56 per cent of that issued to only 33 farmers.

He said the delay in rains has forced his ministry to take a decision to give farmers the option to either row plant or broadcast and said the government assisted ploughing/planting shall remain the same that is January 31 and February 15 for South and North of Dibete respectively.

On other issues he said the Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD) situation in the country has improved significantly and even in Ngami land where the ministry continues to experience resurgence of the disease, cases are fewer and further apart and the last cases of the disease in district were reported in September.

He said the main obstacle in Ngami land is lack of effective livestock movement control, which in addition to impacting on vaccination coverage also facilitates transmission of the disease, freely available water in the Okavango Delta and the Lake Ngami does not help the situation.

Mr Molebatsi said his ministry has embarked on a country-wide rollout of the first leg of the ear tag implementation which involves ear tagging all cattle with bolus and said teams will be all over districts to kick start the implementation of the ear tag. He said so far 326 296 cattle has been ear tagged out of a targeted 1 531 000 cattle and a major concern is the high number of animals being returned at crushes on account of lack of inappropriate documentation especially current Omang (IDs) and brand registers. ENDS