Empower Farmers

(MENAFN- The Post) THE government of Lesotho this week imposed yet again a blanket ban on the importation of eggs, cabbages and potatoes into the country.

The idea, which is noble, is to cushion local farmers who always find it difficult to compete with their counterparts from South Africa.

Pitso Lesaoana, who spoke on behalf of the Ministry of Agriculture, said the decision comes after the government was satisfied with the levels of production in Lesotho.

Lesaoana said the ban, which will run for an indefinite period, will create more opportunities for local farmers.

While we agree with the decision to buy and promote local, we are not convinced that our farmers have the capacity at present to supply the local market to the required levels.

A similar ban on the importation of eggs had to be quickly lifted last January after farmers failed to meet demand.

That also happened a couple of years ago after the Ministry of Trade imposed a ban on the importation of meat products from South Africa.

The ban also had to be lifted after howls of protest from Basotho.

We hope we will not experience the same bottlenecks this time with regards to the supply of eggs, cabbages and potatoes.

We also hope that the government has done its homework to ensure that there will be no shortages of the commodities on the market.

For decades, Lesotho has been importing virtually everything, from food, clothing and toothpicks, from South Africa. We have had no capacity to grow enough to feed ourselves, thanks to our skewed and misguided political choices.

The result is that we, as a country, are basically a large, open supermarket for South African products.

That effectively kills our local farmers who struggle to secure markets for their commodities.

If we are to empower local farmers, we need to wean ourselves from an overreliance on South African products.

We need to start growing enough to feed ourselves. That will allow us to assert our independence and sovereignty.

Closing our borders to South African agricultural products should be the first step. We need to move a step higher by coming up with creative ways to empower local farmers beyond political platitudes.

And on this aspect, we have a lot that we can learn from China.

The Chinese government, has for instance, come up with a subsidy that is given to all supermarkets and shops that buy their products from local farmers. It is an innovative way of supporting local farmers.

We are sure that most shops would jump at such an arrangement. It would create a win-win situation for businesses and local farmers.

The second lesson is that the Chinese government has come to view food self-sufficiency as a national security matter. That is how serious they take the issue in ensuring that they grow enough to feed themselves.

Only nine percent of China's land is arable. Yet they are able to feed their 1.4 billion people.

Only nine percent of Lesotho's total land area also arable, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

That means every little piece of arable land must be utilised for agricultural purposes.

Our advantage is that we have vast water reserves that could be used for irrigation purposes. We therefore have no excuse why we cannot feed ourselves.

Our farmers need real support from the government to transform Lesotho's agricultural fortunes. We believe that can be done.

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