Botswana needs a semen storage bank - Setlalekgosi

Chairman of the National Agricultural Show committee, Thapelo Setlalekgosi told the just- ended Show in Sebele that Botswana will fully celebrate its independence after reducing dependence in food imported from other nations.

“It is very sad and disheartening to buy a 12.5kg maize meal for P120 or bottle of 750ml of cooking oil for P90,” he said, adding that the country has a lot of groundnuts and sunflower but needs to develop value chains to fully exploit farm proceeds.

“Groundnuts are in abundance around the Radisele area. Let us stop using those groundnuts for wrong purposes”. He said that farmers exhibiting at the expo donated over 30 high quality bulls purely for their semen to be extracted and given to their counterparts who have been hard hit by FMD in North East.

An average bull produces about 300 stocks, which means that the beneficiaries are going to have the best genetics as the bulls are top quality in the market.

Setlalekgosi, a farmer of repute himself however bemoaned that Botswana still does not have a semen or storage bank for either cattle or small stock, further calling on the private sector to consider their position.

“We are in great risk, imagine if the entire country has an outbreak of FMD. This can happen any day, if it happens everything has to be slaughtered and we will be left with nothing.”

Setlalekgosi also raised concern that currently the country does not have dairy animals.

“Our dairy sector is going down each day. We produce only 15 percent which is 10 000 litres of milk as compared to 65 000 litres of what we need.

“I urge you to go into dairy farming,” he said, further praising poultry farmers as the country is 100 percent self- sufficient in poultry.

Turning to the importance of the show, Setlalekgosi said it is important to hold it in order to celebrate achievements within the agricultural sector, one of which is that Botswana is among the best countries in Africa in controlling Foot and Mouth Disease.

“A month ago we had an outbreak; we could not sell or export our beef. But because this country has the best facilities, best manpower, within a month we were able to turn the situation around and are back to trade,” he said. He called on all to ensure that farmers and ordinary people add value to local products through value chains. He said it is critical to support President Masisi’s efforts of luring investors to come and invest in Botswana.

Setlalekgosi said the time is now for Batswana to approach the likes of CEDA, NDB in order to get finance that will enable them to start looking at the value chain in the agricultural sector.