Tough times upon Batswana as drought deepens
Baboki Kayawe | Friday July 29, 2016 15:30
While President Ian Khama officially launched the region’s appeal for P26bn in humanitarian aid in the wake of the devastating El Niño event on Tuesday, farmers looked to the gods for rain with anticipation. The southern African region is undergoing its worst drought in 35 years, pushing 40 million people into dire need, including 23 million requiring emergency intervention.
All Betty Ramathu, a 51-year-old farmer in Llara/Dikgatlhong lands near Ramotswa wishes could be availed in aid is water for both her crops and livestock.
“I really wish it was possible for someone to make it rain,” says the mother of four.
She says the past three years have been very bad for arable agriculture, her only means of survival since 1997. For the past decade she has successfully tilled the land to put food on the table, but that is being threatened by the dry spell.
Reminiscing on one good harvest season in the 2012-2013 ploughing period where she made about P6,000 from sugar cane proceeds, and P6,000 just from selling cooked maize cobs on the street, Betty can only dream of the golden days.
“The good days of plentitude are over. The last harvest season was very bad. I had planted three hectares of maize, but everything wilted, I didn’t harvest not even a thing,” she says despairingly.
However, she takes comfort in that beans did well this season. “I managed to harvest nine 50 kilogrammes of beans, which I all supplied to Botswana Agricultural Marketing Board (BAMB),” Betty says.
Mandated with the provision of a market for locally grown crops, the board buys 50kg of beans at P710.
Watermelons did not do as badly though, and she managed to supply to a local school.
Betty has been running a poultry project along side arable agriculture business, but due to financial constrains it stopped operating last July. However, plans are underway to revive the poultry business.
“I am in the process of diversifying the business at the moment. Last year I bought cattle and goats because it is really hard to make a living from crop production these days,” she says.
“I want to approach the department of gender affairs for funding though these government programmes take time. My son has long applied for goats under the Livestock Management and Infrastructure Development, but he is sent from pillar to post,” she says pointing at the young man busy watering cattle.
In Lehatlheng lands in the outskirts of Ranaka village, cattle and smallstock are seen grazing peacefully in the dry fields.
The land looks deserted with little sign of life save for the domestic animals putting to good use what is left of the sun-spoilt crops.
It is from this soil where Gosaitse Ramaologa, 42, and Mompati Ramasu, 36, have had resources to be schooled, clothed and fed to be the men they are today.
“Farming is the only way of life we have known. But with these dry conditions and changed rain patterns we don’t know where we are headed to, the future looks ugly,” says Gosaitse.
He adds that the harvest has severely dwindled to an extent that less than 30% of their household income is derived from agriculture. Before, Gosaitse says it was rare to buy stuff like cereals from retail stores, but today it is common to do so.
“We planted 10 hectares of maize, beans and water melons, but we didn’t harvest anything,” says Mompati.
Though with good intentions, the two farmers blame the Integrated Support Programme for Arable Agriculture Development (ISPAAD) for proliferating a situation where farmers till the land either too early or late.
“Ever since government engaged tractor owners to plough for people at a fee, we plant when the soil is too dry, after waiting for some time for the service providers to deal with the long queue of farmers who want their fields ploughed,” says Gosaitse.
Last year we booked for the tractor two weeks after the first rains knowing well that moisture would be adequate to germinate as well as make the crops grow, but because tractor owners are looking for money they skipped us and provided their service to other clients, narrates the concerned farmer.
“Because we ploughed at the wrong time we failed to reap anything besides marotse,” he says.
Lerotse is of the watermelon family used to prepare a popular cultural delicacy called bogobe-jwa-lerotse.
It appears it does well in drought conditions. With very limited preservation and agro-processing skills, the two farmers are doing little to add value.
“We are only processing it on a very small scale through extracting the juice that is used to cook bogobe, but we lack the know-how to preserve it for a long time so that we supply when it is off-season,” says Gosaitse.
With lots of marotse in their backyard, they really wish agricultural extension officers could embark on serious public education on what crops to plant under the prevailing conditions, as well as shed light on agro-processing businesses.
“Honestly, I wish government could assist us to do agriculture the smart way in addition to adding value to the little yield that we get. Due to lack of skills and advanced machineries we are just going to watch our marotse rot and go to waste, this is really sad,” Gosaitse adds.
Kelebogile Setlhako is a 46-year-old single mother of six. All her life she has practiced subsistence farming to feed her household. The dryness has left her empty handed. All her cattle succumbed to the drought last year.
“We ploughed last season, but nothing came from our hard toil. Times are hard,” she says.
In good years Kelebogile used to spend around P500 to supplement the output from her lands, but now she will be forced to spend over P1,000 to feed her family.
“Times are really tough. It is very hard to get employment as well, the only hope I have is the Ipelegeng programme, but people get engaged on a rotational basis. After all it is a temporary means not sustainable,” she says.
If they had the might, these farmers would seed the clouds to bring down the most valuable thing in their life, rain. But all they have to do now is “wait for the land to yield its valuable crop, and patiently wait for the autumn and spring rains”.