Food And agriculture Organisation Country Programming Framework for Botswana

2.2 Food Situation & Nutrition

In 2000, Botswana revised its National Food Strategy (RNFS) which lays down the broad based framework within which the national and household food and economic security processes and activities are to be carried out. The scope of the Revised National Food Strategy includes the following: providing economic access to food for households by attainment of a broad based income security, assurance of household food security through and guaranteeing food safety and nutritional security. The general aims and objectives of the RNFS are: to ensure physical availability of adequate food supplies at national and sub-national levels through sustainable combinations of domestic production, imports, and reserves and through a well-dispersed and effective distribution and marketing network, to ensure economic access at household level, and to provide support for sustainable improvements in the nutritional status of the nation and within the framework of existing health legislation, control and consumer education to ensure food safety and quality.

The specific objectives and targets are: to reduce by two percentage points the proportion of households which are food insecure and currently below poverty line for the next twenty years, to contribute to the reduction of the proportion of children underweight for their age from the current 15% to 7% by the year 2015 and to reduce poverty rate among the people in the remote areas settlements and cattle posts by about 3-4 percentage points.

In order to ensure availability and adequate food supplies the strategy aims to achieve this through increased domestic production, imports, trade and markets, food reserves and buffer stocks and basic infrastructure and food distribution networks. Economic access to available food supplies will be achieved through poverty alleviation and promotion of sustainable growth in incomes; maintenance of competitive income shocks and income fluctuations and provision of safety nets and public assistance programmes.

Botswana is doing badly in terms of achieving MDGs concerned with health and is it unlikely that the country will meet these MDGs. These are MDG4 on reduction of the under 5 mortality by two thirds in 2015 and MDG 5 on reduction of maternal mortality by three quarters. Government has an extensive set of cash and food transfers system intended to primarily protect the poor and vulnerable groups such as the under-fives, pregnant and lactating mothers. These programs include monthly food rations through Destitute Persons Program, the Orphan Care Program, the Vulnerable Group Feeding Programme and Community Home-based Care Programme. For children, Government has embarked on extensive Vitamin A injection and provision of nutritious food (Tsabana – locally manufactured) in order to improve their nutrition. The challenge faced by these programmes is to reach the target population utilisation and coverage. For instance it was reported that 42.9% of children did not receive tsabana either because they were eligible or missed the ration (The Situation Analysis of Children and their Families in Botswana, 2011, UNICEF).

2.3 Agricultural Sector

Agriculture plays a very important role in the economy of Botswana. More than 80% of the rural population is involved in agriculture. The government considers farming as a key area for employment creation and income generation for the majority of rural families. The land tenure system consists of four land holdings namely state, freehold, ninety nine years leasehold and communal land. The majority of farmers still practice mixed cropping and the bulk of the 2.5 million cattle are found in the traditional/communal sector. Most crop farmers operate at subsistence level, with landholdings of 5-10 ha in the communal lands. Commercial arable agriculture is practiced on leasehold system of more than 100ha and a few cattle farmers operate from livestock ranches, while the majority operate from the communal lands.

To improve the agriculture sector’s performance, the government is embarking on the National Agriculture Policy (1991) review process. It is intended that the revised policy will address the whole food chains. This will be accompanied by the creation of a responsive extension system manned by staff with relevant expertise. The government is also deliberately increasing commercial arable land, with 16,625 ha already allocated in the Pandamatenga area and a further 3,797 ha allocated elsewhere in the rest of country. The government is also currently involved in other major agricultural programmes which are being continued during the current NDP 10, such as the Livestock Improvement & Infrastructure Development (LIMID), the Integrated Support Programme for Arable Agriculture Development (ISPAAD), the National Master Plan for Arable Agriculture & Dairy Development (NAMPAADD) and the disease control and intensification of rural infrastructure development. All these initiatives are aimed at raising the agriculture sector to once again play a significant employment creation role.

2.3.3 Climate Change

According to Dambe (2006) there has been a continued slight delay in the onset of planting rains over the years, which has had an impact on farming in Botswana. There is still no definite explanation for this trend though recent studies have suggested that late rains in Southern Africa may be due to changing weather patterns as a result of climate change particularly due to the el-nino effect. These delays will eventually impact on the type of crop farming systems that may have to be adopted by arable farmers. The department of meteorological services has in recent times been calling for both the agronomists and agro-meteorologists to study the extent of the change and how it impacts on crop performance. In the recent cropping seasons, most parts of the country had not received enough rainfall, by the 15th of November. As a result very little ploughing and planting was carried out. Botswana’s ploughing season usually starts in October and ends in January. The UNDP's Human Development Report for 2006 acknowledged that farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa who are dependent on rain and its patterns will increasingly have to cope with unpredictable weather. More than 90 percent of people living in rural Sub-Saharan Africa are dependent on rain-fed agriculture, so what happens to rain and moisture content in the soil has very profound and immediate implications for poverty levels. According to the report crop yields could in future fall by as much as a third or more in some areas. For livestock, are as droughts period become more frequent, it means that there will be less grazing for the animals as they depend entirely on natural grazing. This will bring challenges in that farmers will have to supplement their animals. Climate change is predicted to also bring extreme weather effects such as frequent floods. These wet episodes are likely to lead to frequent outbreaks of diseases and hence a challenge to livestock farmers.

2.3.4 Natural Resources Management

Botswana has made significant progress in the area of environment and natural resources management in the last decade. The establishment of the Ministry of Environment, Wildlife & Tourism and the transformation of the National Conservation Strategy coordinating unit into a full-fledged Department of Environmental Affairs has set the tone of the significance the government attaches to issues of the environment. During NDP 9 major advances were made on issues of environmental policy and legislation. Environmental Impact Assessments, Community Based Natural Resource Management (CBNRM), the Meteorological Services Act, matters of tourism and sustainable development, resource and eco-system specific policies were drawn. These covered protection of endangered species, wildlife management, fire management, game reserves, conservation of wetlands, forest, renewable energy, general biodiversity and waste management (GoB-UN, POP, 2010-2014).

2.3.5. Fishery and acquaculture

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