Thursday
Aug 28th
| What’s the Hurry in Leasing Government Farms? |
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As the world faces a food crisis countries such as our own, which is a net food importer, should certainly encourage its farmers to produce more food and make food production a top priority. There is no doubt that agriculture has the potential to employ more people in Botswana
than any other sector and to eradicate poverty – if the policy is well thought out. Making land available to people who want to produce food is one of the strategies that can be employed to free up land for production. It is also common knowledge that commercial farming produces food much more efficiently and cost effectively. Three notices published in the Government Gazette of the 11th July 2008 invite bidders to tender for the leasing of farms – Makoba, Sunnyside and unspecified beef farms. Potential investors are invited to collect the tender documents from 4th July 2008 after paying a non-refundable fee of P110. The tenders close at 1000 hours on 7th August 2008. Presumably these advertisements were published in earlier issues of the Government Gazette, that is, earlier than the 4th of July? Otherwise the period between 11th July 2008 and 7th July 2008 – three weeks - is surely too short for the message to have reached all potential investors? Surely not everyone buys the Government Gazette on a regular basis and many people who are interested n farming may have missed the notices? Government Departments frequently advertise important information in both government and private media when they want to reach a broad spectrum of the population; why is this information, which notifies the public of the allocation of a very scarce government resource, published in an obscure government publication which very few people are likely to read? Or are these notices intended only for a select few farmers who somehow have prior knowledge of the availability of government farms and know that the notices will appear in the Government Gazette? In the past few years, government hatched several schemes to boost agricultural production, including, Naampad and the Youth scheme. Shortage of land was identified to be a challenge for both schemes. How do these government schemes tie up with the present hasty initiative to release government land for commercial production? Quite a lot of land is already in commercial hands; have any studies been conducted to establish if it is used optimally? Have any reviews been made of recent big agricultural projects, such as for instance the farms in Pandamatenga, and even more recently, the huge flower growing project at Glen Valley, that seemingly collapsed? Is there not a danger that the people who will benefit from the current leases are the big landowners, and that the net effect of this newest of initiatives will be to further concentrate land in their hands? The intention to lease government farms clearly leaves more questions than answers. Land is an emotive subject, which must be handled with great caution. Historically land issues have been handled with kid gloves; prior to allocation there usually was extensive public information and consultation. The Tribal Land Act and the Tribal Grazing Land Policy are cases in point. Although shortcomings came to light later with these policies, at least no one could claim that they knew nothing about them |
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