20 Jan 2014

Farmers who plough under the Intergraded Support for Arable Agriculture Development (ISPAAD) programme have been encouraged to buy row planting equipment so as to ready themselves for the 2014/2015 ploughing season.

MP for Tswapong North, Mr Prince Maele noted in a series of kgotla meetings that government’s recent decision to allow farmers to broadcast under ISPAAD was not permanent. He said government backtracked from its decision to compel farmers to row plant because many farmers decried that they did not have equipment to row plant.

However, he said, farmers would not be given another chance if they did not prepare themselves on time. Mr Maele said he appealed to Parliament to give farmers the very last chance to broadcast because they said they did not have row planting equipment in most of the villages in Tswapong North. He encouraged the residents to plough in large numbers in order to produce their own food.

The residents however thanked Mr Maele for taking their pleas to broadcast to the relevant authorities. They said they managed to plough in large numbers because they were able to broadcast. On other issues Mr Maele asked the residents to take advantage of the cluster fencing program which has been revised to allow individuals to fence their fields.

He said the revised package will allow individual farmers who do not have neighbouring farms bordering them or cannot be clustered to be assisted with fencing material at 50 per cent subsidy. He added that groups of farmers with fields less than 150 hectares will also be assisted with fencing material at 50 per cent subsidy. Mr Maele said individual farmers will be subsidised at 50 per cent to construct perimeter fences up to P70 000  and groups will be assisted to construct fences up to P200 000. ENDS