Row planting is a production technique that has been adopted worldwide to
improve productivity of arable production.
“The process is easy to control pests and easy to weed,” responded the minister of Agriculture Christian Degraaf in parliament Thursday.
Easy to supply fertilizer, row planting is also economic on inputs use especially seed and fertilizer including light absorption which is maximized and wind passage also enhanced resulting in improved performance of crops.
“All these operations can be done through use of tractor drawn or animal drawn implements and even by manual operation like hand hoeing,” Degraaf added.
A landlocked semi-arid country, Botswana is inventing all means for sufficient food production away from heavy dependence on neighbouring countries especially South Africa.
With row planting yields much higher comparatively even in small holder farms than from fields not row planted the ultimate end is that farmers can produce more and the country rescued.
“Farmers can record up to 2 tonnes per hectare compared to 500kg/ha which is the norm with our broadcasting farmers. In a 5ha field the farmer can harvest up to 10 tons of sorghum with row planting,” Degraaf said.
He dismissed farmers have been rushed, adding farmers have been rushed to row plant since the inception of ISPAAD in 2008.
“Their view then was that we would be rushing the process if we insisted on row planting,” Degraaf said, insisting the view was in 2009, 2010,2011 and 2012.
The minister is afraid should the country wait until the farmers view changes “we will remain where we are forever.”
In the meantime the productivity with the ISPAAD support has not increased.
Whereas the total hecterages ploughed and planted have increased and the total production has increased in some years, the production per hectare has not improved.
“If we are to wait until the farmers view changes we might remain in the same situation for long,” Degraaf maintained.
According to the ministry’s inventory, there are 2642 tractors and 108o planters in the whole country while Shoshong constituency has 36 tractors and 14 planters.
Degraaf was answering a question in parliament from Shoshong MP Phillip Makgalemele.
