Palapye.com News Blog

source: BOPA
22 August, 2007

KASANE - Some farmers are against the SADC free trade which becomes effective in Botswana next year. Farmers who attended the horticulture day in Kasane told BOPA that the agriculture industry in Botswana was still at an infancy stage and could not compete with impoted products.

The Free Trade Protocol calls on member states to remove any barriers on trade.

Farmers said free trade would negatively impact on agriculture, as the sector was not well developed to compete regionally.

Chairman of Botswana Horticultural council, Mr Alfred Dlamini, said in an interview with BOPA that the agriculture sector had not yet set standard of quality crops, adding that Batswana farmers had to be educated on how to produce quality crops.

Farmers need education on marketing, standardization, packaging and post harvesting handling, he said. Vice Chairman of Ngamiland Horticultural Farmers, Mr Motlhabane Motlhabane, said local farmers could not compete with regional farmers.

Trade will be one sided, he said. Foreign produce will infiltrate the local market. Mr Motlhabane said free trade would allow inferior products to penetrate the Botswana market, adding that the production costs for the local farmers are also high because they relied on generators, as there was no electricity in farms.

He said it was expensive to connect electricity in farms.

In a month I used more than P3 000 on generator fuel, while our neighbors only use around P500 as electricity costs, he said. We are forced to sell our produce at a high price to cover production costs.

Batswana farmers faced problems of lack of infrastructure such as roads, water and telephones in their farms, which would make it difficult to compete with other farmers. He called on government to subsidise farmers to enable them install electricity in their farms. Mr Jacob Van Der Westhuizen, the chairperson of the Commercial Farmers Association, said the local farmers must have crop insurance to guard against destructions caused by natural disasters and wild animals.

He said free trade might benefit Botswana because sorghum produced in the country is of high quality. However, he said local farmers are not ready for the free trade and [continue reading]