Agriculture key to job creation
During the COVID- 19 pandemic, government has been repeatedly telling us that Batswana should now consider venturing into farming and create jobs since this will enhance food security and reduce our high annual import food bill which stands at more than P8 billion. But at present agriculture only contributes 3 percent to the nation’s Gross Domestic Product ( GDP), a figure much lower than that at Independence.
The employment figures for agriculture also lends credence to this. According to the Labour Force Module Report: Quarter 4, 2020, only 11 097 people were employed in agriculture, forestry and fishing in the formal sector; that’s only 2.3 per cent of the workforce in the formal sector. But far more people work in agriculture outside the formal sector and, in fact, it is a major source of employment in the rural areas where formal job opportunities are few and far between. And, indeed, there is much potential in this sector of the economy – at present, except for eggs and broiler meat, farmers here fall far short of meeting the national demand for most agricultural products. For example, our farmers only produce 54 000 tonnes of vegetables which is only 40 percent of the demand for vegetables ( 120 000 tonnes). And it’s a dismal story in field crop production. At present, the nation’s demand for cereals stands at over 200 000 tonnes per year of which only an average 17 percent is supplied by our farmers. And in drought years, farmers may produce less than 10 percent of the national demand. Even in years of good rainfall, our farmers cannot produce enough to meet the demand; during the 2020/ 21 growing season, less than 100 000 tonnes of field crops were harvested with some of the crop lost to flooding. In most years, the average yield of cereals per hectare is below 0.5. tonnes. Now compare that with some farmers in South Africa who regularly produce more than 10 tonnes of maize per hectare!
The dairy sector fares even worse – we only have about 50 dairy farmers in the country and in 2020/ 21 the national dairy herd was estimated to be only 3 704 animals of which 1 225 were milking cows. This is in striking contrast to our national beef cattle herd which numbers over two million animals! So, it is no surprise that our dairy farmers only produce about seven million litres of milk each year – that’s just 11 percent of the national milk demand which stands at 65 million litres. So, there is much potential for dairy farming here; the expansion of our dairy herd would also stimulate other agricultural activities such as fodder crop production thus realising more jobs.
These figures show that there is, indeed, much scope for job creation in agriculture. And more jobs here means that we will be able to reduce our evergrowing annual food import bill! But farming is all too often viewed by young people as a ‘ dirty job’; they want a job in a cool air- conditioned office. However, the farm office may also be air- conditioned and even some tractors! At present, the average age of farmers in Botswana is about 58 years which means that this sector of the economy attracts very few young people. But perhaps it is now time for our young people to venture into farming and take over the reins from their elders!
Although there is much potential for farming here, farmers need to choose wisely what crops to grow. There are many vegetable farmers along the Shashe river in Tonota plus others at nearby
Ditladi. But most of them grow much the same veggies – beetroot, tomatoes, onions, spinach ( Swiss chard)… This means that the local market will be flooded with these veggies and this will result in lower prices for farmers.