Floods leave Glen Valley farm P150 000 poorer (19 January, 2006)

GABORONE - The recent rains that caused floods in various parts of Gaborone and surrounding areas have left a Glen Valley farm P150 000 poorer.

Greenland Agricultural Productions and Consultancys Managing Director Moses Phuti told BOPA that six out of seven tunnels of planted tomatoes and greenpepper were under water.
Phuti said the water took three days to dry up, killing plants worth P150 000 that were maturing.

He said the farm had a continuous plan, which is a 12-month cycle, of nurturing and harvesting the same crops, saying now that the crops were dead there was no choice but to plant again.
However, the CEDA-funded project was not experiencing the problem for the first time.

Since our first crop of September 2005, we have had few floods, especially during the December rains, but they were not as severe as the ones we experienced recently.

Phuti explained that their farm submerged even when it had not rained in their area, adding that when the Segoditswane River floods, its waters flow straight to the farm.

He said lands and housing minister Dikgakgamatso Seretse, whose ministry is the leasser, had inspected the damages and sympathised with them.

Phuti said they were expecting a visit from the ministry officials who had promised to find some permanent solution to the problem.

In addition, he said, they were not only concerned about the damages, but the market as well. He said the farms ambition was to stop vegetable imports into the country.

Currently, he said, the farms main customers were street vendors. We want to overcome the low quality tomato imports that come into our country, he said.

We have therefore, as farmers, decided to group ourselves to beat the imports.

Boago Moganani, the chief land utilisation officer at the Ministry of Agriculture, said the ministry was working with the farm to find a solution to the flooding problem.

He said the aim was to promote agricultural production in Botswana. Moganani said the land on which Greenland Agricultural Productions is located was fertile but was unfortunate that it was threatened by the recurring floods.

He said the ministry was waiting for the land to dry before carrying out a detailed survey on how best to channel flood water.

Greenland Agricultural Productions and Consultancy is one of the 47 Glen Valley horticultural farms serviced under NAMPAADD and is located on a low land near Segoditswane River.
The company has spent more than P800 000 on construction and crop production. BOPA

Cariscience professor lauds Jagdeo Initiative (Monday, September 10th 2007)

Cariscience's Professor Harold Ramkissoon has lauded the Jagdeo Initiative for leading the Region's agricultural programme towards food security and sustainability.
According to a press release from the Government Information Agency Ramkissoon, following a meeting with President Bharrat Jagdeo to discuss how the Region's science and technology drive could be improved said he was "very optimistic that we would see results from this initiative. I would like to see similar initiatives with respect to energy security." He said if food and energy security could be achieved in the Caribbean Community it would create an independent Region.
Themed 'Strengthening Agriculture for Sustainable Development' the objectives of the Initiative include alleviating binding constraints to the development of the sector and creating an enabling environment to encourage a revival of investment in agriculture. In keeping with this, an Agriculture Donors Conference held in Trinidad and Tobago in June, raised US$10M in pledges, from the Region, for the project.
An Investment Confer-ence is planned for November to further consolidate the financial commitments made.

CARDI (Tuesday 11 September, 2007)

In the context of advancing the plan to further diversify and strengthen the non-sugar agricultural sector in the country, Cabinet discussed the role of the CARDI (Caribbean Agriculture Research and Development Institute) in assisting the success of our local agricultural programme. Cabinet was updated by the Honourable Minister of Agriculture on the need to support the restructuring of CARDI so that our goals could be more efficiently and more effectively achieved.

Cabinet was pleased with the progress made in the agricultural diversification programme and committed strong support for the Minister of Agriculture’s request for land and other resources so that the sector may exceed its last year’s performance when the output in the production of fruits and vegetables grew by 134%.