16 Feb 2014

Ngamiland farmers have been urged to speak with one voice in order to change the landscape of the agricultural sector.

The permanent secretary in the Ministry of Agriculture, Dr Micus Chimbombi said they should have a vision to take the agricultural sector to greater heights and they could achieve that by making their voice heard.

Officiating at the Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD) stakeholders’ meeting in Maun, Dr Chimbombi said the sector needed a collective responsibility to meet its objectives, adding that team spirit amongst farmers could assist in addressing challenges faced.

Dr Chimbombi such meetings should be taken seriously as they gave participants a platform to come up with best solutions such as working towards combating FMD.

The ministry’s aim, he said, was to provide dynamic leadership in the development of sustainable, diversified, and competitive agriculture, adding that government wanted to ensure that land was effectively utilised to produce enough food to feed the nation.

Currently, he said there was 600 000 hectares of land for farming and about 400 000 hectares of that land had fertile soils and only 100 000 was being ploughed.

The permanent secretary said since the introduction of Integrated Support Programme for Arable Agriculture Development (ISPAAD), the hectares ploughed had been increased to 300 000 , adding that, “the country needs 200 000 metric tonnes of maize and sorghum and if we add wheat and rice it needs 300 000 metric tonnes, and if farmers could plough the 400 000 hectares of fertile land.”

He observed that the ministry was doing all in its power to support farmers hence the introduction of cluster fencing and through ISPAAD 40 000 hectares of land had been fenced. He said under the programme, farmers would be assisted with fertilizers and pesticides and challenged farmers to take farming seriously. Ends