Agriculture and food in Botswana

Agriculture in Botswana – diamond in African agriculture?

Located in the southernpart of continent, Botswana is one of Africa's landlocked countries. Approximately 70% of Botswana is dominated by the Kalahari Desert which is a large, semiarid sandy savannah that covers an area of 900,000 square kilometres. The main river is Okavango flowing into the country from the north west and with no outlet to the sea, it forms a huge wetland covering 16,800 km known as the Okavango Delta in the Kalahari Desert. The Okavango Delta is an oasis in an arid country and serves as a permanent and seasonal home to a wide array of wildlife. The terrain of Botswana is consistently flat throughout the country maintaining an elevation of around 1,000 m above sea level. The country is divided into three main environmental regions. The hardveld region consists of rocky hill ranges and areas of shallow sand cover in eastern Botswana. The sandveld region is the area of deep Kalahari sand covering the rest of the country. The third region consists of ancient lake beds superimposed on the northern sandveld in the lowest part of the Kalahari Basin. The soils of the eastern hardveld consist of moderately dry red loamy mokata soils on the plains, or mixed chalky and sandy chawana soils, with brownish rocky seloko soils on and around hills. Seloko soils are considered best for grain crops. The fertility of all soils is limited by the amount of rainfall, which is sometimes inadequate on the hardveld and regularly unable to support any cultivation on the sandveld. Botswana's climate is semi-arid. Though it is hot and dry for much of the year, there is a rainy season, which runs through the summer months. Rainfall tends to be erratic, unpredictable and highly regional. Botswana is now the world's largest diamond producer. Mining industry, mainly diamonds, currently contributing about 35 per cent of GDP. In comparison agriculture In 2020, agriculture contributed only around 2.14 percent. Botswana's agricultural potential is, unarguably, limited. The Kalahari desert occupies a large area of the country, and recent regional droughts have not helped the areas where rain-fed agriculture is the norm. Here, sorghum and maize are the main subsistence crops, with millet, groundnuts, beans and sunflower seeds also grown. About 70% of rural household derive their livelihoods from agriculture, through subsistence farming. The industry is dominated by small traditional farms with an average size of less then five hectares. About 63,000 arable farms fit under this category, while only 112 farms are larger than 150 hectares. The Agricultural sector in Botswana covers both crops and livestock production. Nearly all of the grain is produced through rain-fed agriculture. This reliance on rainfall makes production as unreliable as the rainfall it intricately depends on. The production of cereal grains (mainly sorghum and maize) varies considerably from year to year, dependent almost entirely on rainfall with annual production averaging 46,000 tonnes, fluctuating between 8,200 and 175,000 tonnes. For instance, the 2019 statistics indicate that the traditional crop sector experienced a poor harvest compared to 2017. Sorghum production recorded a substantial reduction from 5,975 metric tons in 2017 to 826 metric tons (86.2 percent) in 2019. Maize production also experienced a huge reduction from 13,911 metric tons to a staggering 987 metric tons (92.9 percent), while millet production dropped from 1,099 metric tons to 313 metric tons (71.5 percent) in 2017 and 2019 respectively. The beans/pulses also realized a significant reduction in production from 2,348 metric tons in 2017 to 583 metric tons (75.2 percent) between the 2017 and 2019 agricultural seasons. Compared to 2017 agricultural statistics, there was a decrease in area planted and area harvested for all the crops in 2019 except for millet which remained the same. The crop sector recorded substantially low yields during the 2019 compared to the 2017 cropping season, in terms of both yield per hectare planted and yield per hectare harvested. The yields per hectare planted for sorghum dropped from 251 kg/ha in 2017 to 48 kg/ha in 2019, while maize yield was 225kg/ha in 2017 but dropped to 25kg/ha in 2019. The millet yield reduced from 353 kg/ha to 91kg/ha between 2017 and 2019 respectively, while the yield for pulses also showed a marked reduction from 86 kg/ha to 31 kg/ha between 2017 and 2019 survey years respectively. Fruit production data collected only from farms specialising in fruit production shows general increases in volume. Orange continues to dominate the production landscape while melons and bananas experience sporadic production. The livestock sector has fared much better over the years, compared to the crop sector. The volumes and diversity of livestock has shown increases (with minor fluctuations owing to drought and diseases), except for cattle. Poultry and piggery have shown significant increase. The beef industry is the only sub-sector of the agriculture sector that has constantly remained a significant contributor to the national Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Raising cattle has long been the most profitable farming activity in Botswana. The beef industry is well established, and over 95 per cent of production is exported, much of it to Europe. The country has an estimated 2.5 million heads of cattle, and a similar number of small stock, mainly sheep and goats. But with only 20 per cent of the country's land suitable for grazing, the success of the livestock business has often been to the detriment of natural resources: overgrazing and damage to trees are frequently encountered negative impacts. Dairy farming, in contrast, is not well developed in Botswana; only 30 per cent of the country's fresh milk demand is supplied internally, most of the remainder coming from neighbouring South Africa. The goats’ population is increasing steadily, from 1,200,000 in 2017 to 1,229,000 in 2019. The birth rate of goats increased by a percentage point from 39.1 to 39.2 percent. The goats’ mortality rate decreased from 23.3 to 18.9 percent in 2017 and 2019 respectively. The Sheep population increased from 234,621 to 242,911between 2017 and 2019. The birth rate experienced a slight decrease from 33.6 to 32.8 percent in the same period, while the mortality rate also dropped to 14.1 percent in 2019 from 16.1 percent recorded in 2017. However, the off-take rate increased from 3.9 to 4.5 percent.