25 Aug 2024

Government has, over and beyond the sponsorship generated toward the delivery of the 2024 National Agricultural Show, committed P13.9 million for upgrading national agricultural show grounds.

This was announced by His Excellency, President Dr Mokgweetsi Eric Keabetswe Masisi at this year’s National Agricultural Show in Sebele on Friday, where farmers had thronged from across all corners of the country to showcase their produce and network.

President Masisi said the funds would be used, among others, to uplift the kraals, construct multipurpose hall which would be designed and supervised by a local architect, Mr Moemedi Gabana, who pledged his services at no costs.

To that effect, President Masisi thanked Mr Gabana and requested that he extended his pledge to include the design of the kraals too, their supervision, including the poultry house and the general esthetics of the show ground.

Therefore, he urged other service providers including engineers, contractors, the public and traders to also pledge to donate toward the noble course.

He assured that government would offer support, citing that his Cabinet would equally match the donations from the public.

In addition, he appealed to the private sector to partner with stakeholders in the agriculture sector and government to develop the show grounds and build state of the art facilities.

“We wish to transform these show grounds to international standards. We want to use a master plan befitting the general city development as this is a special economic zone,” he said.

He said government had identified the agricultural sector as one of the priority areas that can diversify and contribute meaningfully to the transformation of the economy from upper-middle income to high income by 2036, bringing prosperity to Batswana.

“The sector has been a source of livelihood for Batswana over a long time and one of major contributors to the economy’s growth as it provides social security and employment, mostly to the rural populace,” he said.

Therefore, he said the need to develop the sector to be operated in a sustainable technology driven and commercially viable manner was highly recommended and imperative to do in the foreseeable future.  He said the theme: Enhancing Agricultural Productivity through Utilisation of Modern Technologies, was appropriate as they strived to transform the sector through the use of various advanced agricultural technologies.

He further said the use of technology was paramount now more than ever before due to the effects of climate change and the recurrence of drought.

For his part, Minister of Agriculture, Honourable Fidelis Molao said despite the drought, this year’s National Agricultural Show exceeded expectations as it was back, bigger and better.

Mr Molao said the high quality of the exhibits clearly demonstrated that they could feed themselves as a nation, adding that throughout the years, the show wholly relied on government subvention as there were no revenue streams for the show committee. 

He also echoed the President’s words for the private sector to partner with government, to bring vibrancy and developments to the agricultural show ground, which was an 81-hectare plot.

Mr Molao said the introduction of intervention programmes such as Temo Letlotlo, Thuo Letlotlo and Impact Accelerator Subsidy (IAS) were meant to bring excitement to the sector.

“I am happy to see excitement shown by both the young and old towards the three programmes, as an example, 4 165 applications have been received from various Thuo Letlotlo packages, which was recently launched in April this year,” he said. He said Botswana had realised the benefits of investing in the horticultural sector through the IAS, adding that when the programme was started in 2022, production of horticultural produce stood at 74 000 metric tonnes (mt) for the 2022/23 season and had since exceeded the annual national demand of 85 000mt as it currently stood at 88 000mt.

He added that in an effort to accelerate honey production in Botswana, the ministry through its Apiculture Department, was implementing a project dubbed Refurbishment of Beekeeping Multiplication and Honey Processing Plants at Ramatlabama and Lobu under the two-year Transitional National Development Plan (TNDP), which was envisaged to improve the productivity and production levels of the sector.

Furthermore, Mr Molao said apiculture had been included in Thuo Letlotlo programme, which aimed at transforming the livestock sector and increase its output. ends