24 Mar 2026

Over 6 300 farmers in the North East district have registered for the ongoing Lemang Dijo Crop Management System with about 2 300 farmers having received grants on various packages so far.

North East District Council (NEDC) chairperson, Mr Mbaakanyi Smart said when addressing NEDC full council on March 23 adding that in terms of ploughing this season, the district stood at an estimated ploughed area of about 1 322 hectares by 759 farmers with cereals being the most dominant crops at about 622 hectares.

He said the programme uptake was progressing well as many farmers registered but only a few had benefitted as indicated by the number of grants received and estimated low area planted.

“A lot of factors contributing to low uptake was the issue of coordinates requirement as per the guidelines from the service providers being tractor owners and draught power for easy of transactions and frequent change of cell phone numbers,” he said.

While farmers took an initiative to register for Lemang Dijo System, he said the district was experiencing a serious crop damage particularly millet by Quelea birds.

He however said plant health teams had long been dispatched to do surveillance with the aim to control them, but the exercise proved futile due to various factors such as difficult terrain and absence of breeding colonies.

Regarding school feeding programme, he noted that the package was progressing well and delivery of milk by Food Botswana was ongoing. He said the district council had also credited schools with funds to procure breakfast food items.

In addition to the normal food items, he said council had also credited all the 43 primary schools in the district with funds amounting to P400,000 for procurement of letlhafula from local farmers.

He indicated that evaluation of Expression of Interest for milling companies on supply of sorghum meal was ongoing and would be completed before end of March this year, saying in the meantime, schools had been advised to procure sorghum meal from local milling companies using the funds credited into their accounts.

On the issue of health, Mr Smart said the country recently experienced Malaria outbreaks in some districts including Tutume.

He said due to heavy rains experienced this year disease outbreaks were expected and the district should remain vigilant of any cases of Malaria let alone polio that might be introduced into the region.

“In that regard, I would like to urge our communities to clean their surroundings, cut grasses and empty any standing waters so as to prevent breeding grounds for mosquitoes. Anyone with signs of malaria is encouraged to seek medical attention immediately,” he said.

He indicated that the Ministry of Health recently released a press release on the outbreak of vaccine derived polio virus in neighbouring counties of Zambia, Namibia and Malawi adding that although Botswana had not isolated any case yet, it remained vigilant.

He encouraged everyone to seek medical attention if they suspected or saw a weakness of limps in their children and also to ensure that their children were vaccinated against polio.

Regarding shortage of doctors, Mr Smart said the procurement for telemedicine equipment was underway and at a final stage with the expectation that by beginning of this coming financial year it would be operational.

Mr Smart highlighted that government was still experiencing temporary medicine shortages, but indicated that decisive government action and ongoing reforms were steadily restoring drug availability and strengthening the national health supply system.

He noted that the ARV situation had stabilised in the district with patients going back to normal multi month dispensing of three months while the current supply of anti–hypertensive and anti-diabetics was limited in some facilities adding that measures were underway to replenish stocks and stabilise availability.

However, he said, Anti-hypertensive availability was at 64 per cent while anti-diabetics was at 90 per cent with below optimal stock for eye drops and oral antibiotics for both adults and pediatrics. ENDS