- Tsaone Segeatsho
The latest data from Botswana’s food, inflation, and trade statistics points to a country sitting on a ticking time bomb as domestic food production is scorched by El Niño, leading to an increase in food inflation and the food import bill.
Botswana is currently experiencing its hottest and driest period for farmers and their crops.
In an interview with The Executive Botswana, Botswana Horticulture Council Chairperson, Mogomotsi Moatswi, acknowledged how the current conditions impact local production, particularly the quality of crops.
“In this, there comes irregular and unpredictable rainfall patterns which leave crops to deal with the heatwaves. Also, in these conditions, it is where there are erratic outbursts of pests which tend to breed more or have a shorter life cycle. Hot weather is where pests thrive, and we tend to experience new and uncontrollable pests, which attack and affect the quality of crops,” said Moatswi.
Recently, during the presentation of the Committee of Supply, Minister of Agriculture, Fedilis Molao said, “the 2023/24 cropping season has been forecasted as a drought year, while 2022/23 was declared a severe drought and the 2021/2022 declared a drought year. The onset of the current season experienced heatwaves, coupled with sporadic, unevenly distributed light showers during the month of December 2023.”
Molao said before proposing P3.5 billion for the current financial year. Of the proposed allocation, P1.5 billion would go to crop production. Despite this, the Southern Africa Seasonal Monitor for last month indicated Botswana is grappling with the worst of what El Niño has to offer, with February 2024 being the driest in 40 years, with maximum temperatures occasionally reaching and crossing 37 degrees celsius.
According to Greenpeace Africa, a movement of global environmental activists, last month, large parts of Zambia, Botswana, and Zimbabwe had the least rainfall in over 40 years.
“In Southern Africa, the El Niño weather phenomenon is a significant factor, driving humanitarian needs, and putting the lives and livelihoods of millions at risk.”
The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), when looking at the latter stages of 2023 in their recent report, estimated Botswana’s cereal production at 73,000 tonnes in 2023, about 15 percent below the five-year average, reflecting lower-than-average rainfall amounts and an uneven temporal distribution. High temperatures during the cropping season also exacerbated the effects of reduced rainfall on crop yields.
The FAO had further raised alarm last year, referencing the government’s latest livelihood assessment, released in July 2023, reporting that almost 37,000 people are estimated to be in need of food assistance until at least March 2024.
In the inflation results released by Statistics Botswana and Bank of Botswana recently, food inflation continued its El Niño-led spike, following in the similar trend from the previous year, leading to a reliance on food imports. Inflation for food & non-alcoholic beverages rose by 0.4 percent between January and February 2024.
A frustration for food security comes when domestic supply of production is facing a natural disaster like drought or El Niño, conditions that fall beyond the control of human beings. Despite that reality, experts have evoked the use of technology as a remedy.
Moatswi has lamented the lack of research development locally, saying that while the conditions of drought and El Niño cannot be controlled, Botswana should invest more in research to ensure preparedness for their occurrence.
He further called for support to smallhold farmers in catastrophic situations, explaining that they are most at risk in these conditions as large scale farmers are often able to withstand the conditions through the retention of sizable portions of production.
