09 Mar 2014

Ministry of Agriculture is transforming the Botswana Horticultural Market into a wholesale market following outcry from farmers.

The permanent secretary in the Ministry of Agriculture, Dr Micus Chimbombi revealed this recently at the ministry’s Letsema meeting at Botswana Police College. Dr Chimbombi who was giving farmers feedback on the previous meeting resolutions said Botswana Horticultural Market would be turned into a wholesale market as opposed to the current agent based model.

He noted that the current model was retrogressive as produce at the market remained the property of the farmer until sold, adding that Botswana Horticultural Market or agents never owned the produce.

Under the new model, he said farmers would relinquish their ownership of the produce to the market and they would be paid accordingly. Dr Chimbombi said the agent based model was not helping the sub-sector because when the produce was not bought it would be returned to the farmer, which would be a loss.

Furthermore, he said the wholesale model reliefed farmers from a burden of paying commission to the market sales agents. He told the farmers that the ministry was determined that by the end of May this year the new change would have taken effect.

He said once the change has taken effect, it would be easy for the ministry to impose restriction on imported products because horticultural products would be concentrated in one place. On other issues, Dr Chimbombi told the farmers that government was doing a lot to support and promote the horticulture sub sector.

Already, he noted that horticultural farmers enjoy subsidy and support under the ISPAAD program, which shows support for the sector from government.
The response followed a resolution which called on government to waive tax for horticultural produce in order to promote the subsector. Ends