Farmers urged to use climate-smart technologies
Isaac Pinielo | Tuesday May 9, 2017 15:00
Speaking during the Mosisedi Commercial Farmers Association (MCFA) harvest day held at Mosi Hill Farm on Saturday, Vice President Mokgweetsi Masisi said farmers can achieve high productivity if they use climate-smart farming technologies.
“We need to focus our investment efforts towards the adoption of sustainable agricultural practices that will help address the impact of climate change on our crops,” he said.
Masisi cited the theme of the event, ‘Climate Smart Farming For Sustainable Arable Agriculture’, saying it is appropriate as it highlights how agriculture, particularly the production of food, needs to adapt to climate change in order to feed the growing population.
He indicated that Mosisedi farmers and others across the country have experienced adverse weather conditions that have resulted in reduced production output.
“Such trends confirm the need for all of us to work together in finding new, efficient and eco-friendly ways of producing food through smart farming,” Masisi said.
Mosisedi Commercial Farmers Association comprises 25 farmers, who collectively till over 10,000 hectares of land, with the common objective of ensuring food security for the country.
According to Masisi, government with additional technical support from regional and global partners, has introduced the Climate Smart Agriculture (CSA) programme.
He said this is a long-term initiative that is expected to run until 2030 with the aim to improve agricultural productivity while reducing farmers’ vulnerability to climate change.
“Considering the scarcity of higher yielding agricultural land in Botswana, I urge all farmers to embrace climate smart agriculture as it promotes sustainable intensification of agricultural inputs, with increased output per given area,” Masisi said.
Thabo Thamane, chief executive officer of the Citizen Entrepreneurial Development Agency (CEDA), said farmers across the country have been faced with lack of rainfall over the past few years.
To assist, he said CEDA encourages farmers to subscribe to the Agricultural Credit Guarantee Scheme that has been set up by government to assist dry-land farmers with crop cover.
“The cover is meant to assist dry-land crop farmers in reducing their debt obligations with participating banks or lending institutions in case of crop failure, due to drought, floods, frost and hailstorm,” he said.
Thamane encouraged farmers to adopt innovative methods of farming, adding that CEDA is on an on-going basis assisting them to procure modern farming implements.
Since inception, he said, the agency has invested over P1.2 billion into the agricultural sector and creating employment for over 6,000 people.
He said CEDA has already invested P47.7 million in an area of 5,814 hectares within the Mosi-Sedibeng block.
A significant portion of these funds was for acquisition of machinery and farming implements.
“As we monitored the farms during the recent good rains, we realised that more could be done to access roads,” Thamane said.
He said inability to access the farms due to flooding may not only impede CEDA’s monitoring and mentoring function, but other service providers, noting that even the farmers themselves are limited thereby posing production risks.