19 Aug 2024

Comprising 34 members, Letlhabile Southern Young Farmers Association is intent not only to grow its membership base but also to make agriculture attractive to the youth.

The association's public relations officer, Mr Harrison Montsho is optimistic that they will achieve both objectives given the amount of interest that their five year-old organisation continues to elicit from potential members from across the Southern half of the country.

Mr Montsho says Letlhabile's membership has representation of all value chains within the agricultural sector, which gives members a priceless learning platform that is crucial particularly to budding farmers.

"We are pushing The President's mandate that encourages us to take agriculture seriously especially the aspect of why it is important to venture into agriculture at a young," he said.

" We have 34 active members who are engaged in diverse farming activities with some doing dryland farming, while others are pursuing cattle farming, smallstock farming, horticulture while yet others operate agri-shops," he added.

Mr Montsho is grateful for the support that state-owned enterprises like LEA and NARDI give to the association.

The workshops that they host in collaboration with these entities equips members with invaluable insights that help build the confidence of the young farmers that make up Letlhabile.

Mr Montsho shares the sentiments held by government that agriculture has the potential to contribute handsomely to Botswana's GDP, and believes that the youth carry the fire necessary to help re-ignite this potential.

He believes that if the youth were to approach the sector with the concept of innovation at the back of their minds they would reap to the fullest extent its potential to drive both personal actualisation and national growth.

"Agriculture is not what it used to be in the past, it is now a business. We now export beef, and government has since sourced a market for smallstock in Saudi Arabia. We should now be asking ourselves what else it is that we should be exporting," he said.

A founding member of the association, Mr Keone Sekhobe says Letlhabile was born from a meeting with officials of the Ministry of Agriculture back in 2018.

He says the meeting stirred in attendants the desire to explore the sector and see what good could be reaped from it.

The member, who is into dryland farming says associations such as theirs are important for purposes of advocacy.

"Associations like Letlhabile are important. Personally, I was able to secure a tractor through NDB (National Development Bank) due to the good reputation of Letlhabile," Mr Sekhobe said.

The young farmer, who ploughs between 120 and 150 hectares per ploughing season describes agriculture as the future and wishes other young people could view the sector with the same lense.

He is optimistic though that with efforts of young farmers like themselves, other young people will be inspired to venture into agriculture and thereby resist the urge to migrate to urban areas in search of life's opportunities, which are often illusive.

Members of the association, which had a stall at the Moshupa District Agricultural Show which ran from August 14 to 18, commend agricultural shows for the opportunity to present themselves to the nation.

Such opportunities, they say help advance their prospects for growth . Ends