15 Apr 2024

Digawana residents have been urged to plant strawberries as an alternative way of making money and improving their livelihood. The encouragement came from their Member of Parliament, Dr Edwin Dikoloti, during a strawberry farming and entrepreneurship training workshop in the village on Saturday.

 Dr Dikoloti said strawberries were easy to grow and in high demand. “Strawberry farming is one of the things a farmer can make quick profits by venturing into it,” he said.

Apart from strawberry farming, he also urged residents to venture into backyard farming in order to improve their livelihoods.

He said backyard farming contributed to the food security of the country. Dr Dikoloti, who is also Minister of Health, further encouraged the community to use the newly introduced low interest Chema Chema Fund to improve their business.

“I implore you to make use of the programme to develop your lives. Government came up with the Chema Chema initiative after realising that some citizens were struggling economically.

 The initiative is intended to uplift livelihoods of such citizens by helping them to develop their businesses,” he said.

Making a presentation on strawberry farming, a young backyard strawberry farmer from Mogobane, Mr Salvation Nkunda, explained that strawberry plants were easy to grow.

He said strawberries multiplied rapidly. He said he started his backyard project with a few strawberry plants, and that they produced many offshoots and were now more than 2 000 plants.

He said they required moderate amounts of water in the morning and evening as well as moderate sunshine to perform optimally under cool temperatures.

“Shading nets can be used to protect strawberry plants from the heat,” he said.

He said strawberries performed poorly in clay soil and experienced root rot when planted in clay soil, adding that a mulching method could be used to improve soil texture.

 Mr Nkunda said there were two types of strawberries, the ever-bearing and the June bearing, adding that the ever bearing produced fruits for the majority of the year while the June bearing produced fruits in winter.

“The June bearing starts flowering in May and produces fruits in June.

The June bearing type produces bigger strawberry fruits compared to the ever-bearing type.

He explained that strawberries required sufficient spacing because they spread along the ground producing off shoots, and that they produced their own seeds.

“Strawberries have a lot of business potential.

 A farmer could sell strawberry plants or fruits. One strawberry plant costs around P50 and they are in high demand.

They are also used for making yoghurt flavours and can be dried and sold as dry fruit,” he said. More than 100 people from Digawana attended the training. Participants were given one strawberry plant each to start their own backyard gardens. ENDS