As the government expands its vegetable import ban to include more items, the shortage list is getting longer. The ban has been expanded to include vegetables like cucumber, lettuce, asparagus and red pepper. Those vegetables are now hard to come by, even in big supermarkets with well-established supply chains. A chef at a luxury holiday resort in the Okavango Delta that hosts Hollywood A-listers says that since the beginning of this month, her resort has been struggling to get asparagus and red pepper. This is in addition to other vegetables on the original list whose supply has been erratic.
Import bans on certain types of vegetables is a long-standing government policy but in 2022 such policy assumed new stringency. The Ministry of Agriculture imposed an import ban on 16 types of vegetables and announced that the list of items on the list will keep growing. While some have alleged underhanded political intrigue, the official purpose of the ban is to stimulate domestic production, bolster food security and economically empower citizens.
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