Agriculture sector’s downtrend continues
Worries are mounting as Botswana’s agricultural sector continues to be buffeted by year in and year out crop and livestock failure rates, limiting its contribution to the economy.
Between its prime years as the country’s central economic activity, the contribution of agriculture to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) has dropped from 40% in 1966 to just three percent last year. GDP is a widely used measure of economic output and activity.
While government has mounted sterling efforts to resuscitate the sector, these have been met with growing climate challenges.
Frequent treaded phenomena like El Nino have caused prolonged periods of dry seasons and high temperatures causing high crop failure rates.
Speaking at the recently ended Breeding for Success seminar, the Assistant minister of Agriculture, Molebatsi Molebatsi said there is alarming concern over the slow painful death of agriculture’s contribution to the mainstream economy.
He highlighted that both the livestock and crop sectors are equally affected by challenges that nullify agricultural efforts in the country.
“Agriculture’s contribution to GDP currently stands at three percent compared to 40% in 1966. The sector continues to face recurrent droughts and animal diseases that have further plunged the sector into dire straits,” said Molebatsi.
The assistant minister further mentioned that Botswana is currently experiencing a low bull to cow ratio resulting in low birth rates in the animal husbandry field of agriculture.
To the dismay of many Batswana farmers, reproductive diseases often blight the nation’s efforts to increase bull to cow rations, he said.
“Agriculture in Botswana is further afflicted by low market prices, affecting disposable income for farmers and rendering their financial ability to leverage opportunities null,” added Molebatsi.
Speaking on efforts to intervene in the troubled sector, he said government is set to rope in the private sector and allow for private companies to relieve the state of some duties.
“Private veterinarians are to be outsourced for artificial insemination as government is incapacitated to efficiently handle the process on a national scale,” he said.
South African agri-economist, Ernest Janovsky said Botswana has engaged in suicidal policies that will adversely affect the agricultural sector even more. Some of these policies, Janovsky said, were the import bans around agriculture, which he warned decrease market outreach for products that could enjoy prime rates in other countries.
“It is against the African regional integration agenda to close borders,” he said.
“Botswana must open up its borders to allow competition and movement of products to other African markets.”
From January last year, Botswana has banned the importation of 16 vegetables including onion, butternut, tomato, watermelon, carrot, potato, cabbage, and ginger. The ban was intended to support local farmers, increase national food security by encouraging local vegetable production and improve horticulture competitiveness.
Recently, government also slapped conditional restrictions on the import and export of key cereals such as sorghum and maize.
According to Janovsky, agriculture in Botswana should be integrated to greater African efforts of creating one African market.