18 Dec 2024

The horticulture import restriction has led to several challenges key among them being the major seasonal disruptions in the local supply which led to significant price volatility. 

Minister of Lands and Agriculture, Dr Micus Chimbombi told Parliament that affordability and accessibility of horticulture products particularly for rural communities had been a challenge and affected international trade relations. 

Dr Chimbombi said the other problems that emanated from the restriction included smuggling of restricted vegetables especially during times when market prices for products were higher in Botswana than neighbouring countries. He said there was rampant smuggling of restricted products resulting in loss of government revenue through unpaid customer fees and products were imported through heavy duty trucks transiting to neighbouring countries carrying fresh produce under pretext that the commodities were to be delivered in destination countries only for the them to be offloaded within the country.

Dr Chimbombi said the ministry was currently working on addressing the real underlying market-related gaps which included finding sustainable solutions to increase on-farm productivity, product and market development, setting up post-harvest and cold chain infrastructure, use of high tech tools for monitoring and evaluation and multimodal logistics to ensure last mile connectivity and timely harvest and crop collection and transportation. 

Government has planned to implement a phased lifting of the restriction whereby phase one involves products which are produced in less quantities domestically while the second phase will entail an evidence based lifting of the restriction, Dr Chimbombi said. 

He said there were ways and formulas that could be used to estimate the number of jobs created by the ban depending on the type of crop under production. Dr Chimbombi said the ban was implemented to protect the promising although still emerging domestic horticulture subsector against stiff competition from already established industries in exporting countries. 

In addition the need to increased local food production Dr Chimbombi said became evident during the outbreak of COVID-19. 

Dr Chimbombi said to complete the import restriction initiative government introduced the impact accelerator subsidy programme in 2021 and in addition, farmers had access to loans offered through NDB at a subsidised rate. 

He said one of the gains of the restriction was growth in the subsector since the total number of horticulture farmers in 2023/24 stood at 1 670 and output of the subsector increased from 75 000 tonnes in 2022/23 to 92 000 tonnes in 2023/24. 

Dr Chimbombi was responding to a question by MP for Moshupa-Manyana, Mr Karabo Gare who asked the minister to apprise the House on the gains if any made through the vegetable ban and if government had the intention to continue with it further. Mr Gare also wanted the minister to state the number of jobs created as a result of the ban and the impact the ban had on CEDA loan book. Ends