Lawmakers, analysts and ordinary citizens have criticised as unrealistic and short-sighted a blueprint to transform Botswana’s agriculture that among others identifies cannabis as a special focus area and sets a target of 250 000 jobs by 2030.
Lands and Agriculture Assistant Minister Edwin Dikoloti has unveiled Botswana’s agriculture agenda under the Twelfth National Development Plan (NDP 12) currently under discussion in Parliament, stating that its objective was to raise the agriculture’s share of GDP from 1.7% to between 6% and 10% by 2030.
The ministry’s main focus areas include doubling the national cattle herd to five million and prioritising the emerging cannabis sector as a new growth frontier through attracting foreign investment to boost revenue. The plan emphasises food security, reducing imports while growing export capacity.
However, some citizens have panned the NDP 12 for being too ambitious, pointing out there was no funding to implement it. Diamond-dependent Botswana has seen a reduction in its revenues due to weakening demand partly caused by competition from lab-grown synthetics.
“My view is NDP 12 needs suspending till we are sure there is the capacity to implement it. Money, people, processes,” wrote Douglas Reisbach on social media.
Commenting on the Lands and Agriculture Ministry presentation, another critic insinuated that cannabis and cattle farming were “large-scale” ventures being prioritised at the expense of small-scale farming methods that sustained many Batswana. These included the raising of goats, sheep and pigs.
Weighing in on the debate, The Ngami Times in an editorial argued that small stock livestock farming had been overlooked. It stated the practice sustained many rural households in Botswana’s arid zones such as North West, Gantsi and Kgalagadi where the potential for goatand sheep farming remained largely untapped.
The Botswana government has cited the same arid climate argument in motivating for a hemp economy. Its Cannabis Policy document singles out the country’s relatively low annual rainfall as a factor, pointing out that hemp requires a minimum of between 250mm and 500mm annual rainfall to thrive.
But critics of the ruling Umbrella for Democratic Change (UDC) government including vocal opposition Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) MP Taolo Lucas have been unrelenting. Lucas has called out the new administration for not prioritising the welfare of Batswana by failing to tackle high unemployment and growing income inequality.
Official statistics put unemployment in Botswana at 27.6%, with youth joblessness estimated to be as high as 38.7%.
Botswana has passed legislation legalizing the medicinal and industrial use of cannabis but general adult-use cannabis remains outlawed.
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