16 Mar 2026

The time is now to embrace Smallholder Horticulture Empowerment and Promotion (SHEP) approach, an extension and advisory method designed to help farmers access and benefit from markets by shifting their mindset from subsistence, grow and sell, to commercial, grow to sell.

The call was made by the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) resident representative, Mr Hiroyasu Tonokawa, who was part of a JICA preliminary survey team on SHEP, which was hosted by the Department of Crop Production in Letlhakeng and later visited horticultural farms.

Mr Hiroyasu, who was part of a team that comprised JICA officials from Botswana and their South Africa counterparts as well as officials from the Department of Agriculture -South Africa, said although it remained a relatively underutilised concept in Botswana, it should be highly valued as it had the potential to transform farming into a business.

He believed that Botswana’s agricultural development would be significantly advanced if the SHEP approach was integrated into its programmes and daily activities. Mr Hiroyasu noted that some Batswana had already benefited from SHEP training in Japan. Mr Hiroyasu reaffirmed JICA’s commitment to agricultural growth and added that starting from the next financial year, JICA planned to expand its support for agriculture in Botswana.

Another JICA official in Botswana, Mr Mothusi Tiyedze, mentioned that while SHEP initially focused on horticulture, there were plans to broaden its scope to include livestock.

An official from the Department of Agriculture in South Africa, Ms Mmaphuti Sebati, and the agricultural coordinator for Letlhakeng district, Mr Thomas Tadubana, stated that for SHEP to make significant progress, it must be embedded into daily work and activities and treated as a continuous approach rather than a one-time project. Mr Tadubana advised farmers to research the market before producing crops and to be aware of prices, even if middlemen were involved. 

In an interview, South Africa’s Department of Agriculture official, Ms Mpho Modau, shared her experience with SHEP, explaining that the department supported the SHEP approach, which began in Kenya in 2006 as a technical cooperation project with JICA.

SHEP is an agricultural extension method aimed at achieving market-oriented agriculture, she said adding that a key aspect of SHEP was capacity building, helping farmers become self-reliant and make their own decisions. She noted that many farmers had traditionally produced crops first and then tried to sell them later, a practice known as grow and sell.

These farmers often struggle to find markets for their produce hence SHEP was developed to change this mindset. In South Africa, she said SHEP started as a pilot project from 2013 to 2018 and proved effective, benefiting 735 farmers across three provinces: Limpopo, Mpumalanga, and KwaZulu-Natal.

Ms Mudau said in 2019, the Department of Agriculture took strong initiatives to roll out SHEP across all nine provinces and integrate it into government programmes. In South Africa, the SHEP programme is now referred to as the Small-Holder Empowerment and Promotion Approach and has been expanded to include other commodities like livestock.

 To roll out SHEP nationwide, the department is implementing a Train-the-Trainer strategy to ensure all extension officers become proficient in the approach. BOPA