BAMB, BUAN SIGN MOU
BOTSWANA University of Agriculture and Natural Resources (BUAN) and Botswana Agricultural Marketing Board (BAMB) this week signed a Memorandum of Understanding on the issues of research, inputs, benchmarking programmes and new technologies.
BAMB Chief Executive Officer, Leonard Morakaladi, said their mandate is to procure scheduled harvest from farmers and in 2016 they evolved by taking over livestock advisory centres.
Morakaladi noted that in order for them to remain relevant, they have to keep reinventing themselves. The CEO said that is why they embarked on a new five-year strategy called ‘Tsosoloso’, meaning revival in English.
“Today we are joining hands with an academia in agriculture and we have a lot of expectations
out of this partnership. In economies where agriculture is thriving, we have noticed that the academia play a vital role. Botswana’s import bill is P7.7 billion and something needs to be done in order for the country to be self-sufficient,” said Morakaladi.
For his part, BUAN Vice Chancellor, Dr Jasper Rees, said agriculture is a business and their focus as an institution is in strengthening it. He said they have to see agriculture as a value chain from producer, processor, retailer, consumer, researcher, farmer and implementation of research within the commercial space.
“We have a graduate entrepreneurship programme within which we intend to train them, develop and when they exit after three years, they would be owners of small businesses. The programme will start in a few weeks. This partnership with BAMB will ensure that we fit properly within the full value chain of our industries. My expectation is that agriculture will grow in value as we become more self-sufficient as a nation,” said Rees.