unitex@rubbs.fidonet.org (unitex) (08/23/89)
Botswana Grows Self-Sufficiency (Christian Science Monitor, August 17, DATELINE: GABORONE) HOW do you feed a landlocked country that has more drought than rainfall, is only 5 percent arable, and which is politically opposed to the neighbor that supplies 75 percent of its imports? The answer for Botswana, a developing country of 1.2 million people, has traditionally been to import more than half its food, most of it purchased from or transported through South Africa. With the discovery of diamonds in Botswana during the 1970s, the country has accumulated enough foreign exchange reserves to maintain its imports for 30 months. But that is exactly what Botswana doesn't want to do. Despite the odds, it seeks to feed itself. ''For me, the most critical thing is to raise income in the rural areas, to raise the level of effective demand for food, and to ensure household security,'' says Tswelopele Moremi, coordinator of the Ministry of Finance's Rural Development Unit. ''We know that most of our people in the rural areas have to spend most of their income on food.'' And that means an even greater task for women. As in most of Africa, a high percentage of the region's farmers are female. The economic and social dynamics of Botswana have created a society in which half the country's households are headed by women, because 20,000 men are employed in the farms and mines of neighboring South Africa. In addition, with the gradual demise of traditional village culture, teen-agers (usually single) now account for 25 percent of all pregnancies. The Botswana government has launched several significant food projects costing millions of dollars, with the help of such agencies as the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), the UN Capital Development Fund, and the UN Food and Agricultural Organization. These efforts include mapping the soils of approximately 45 million acres, building 45 small dams and irrigation systems, storing 80,000 tons of grain, making the country self-sufficient in the production of grain seeds, and establishing a Plant Protection Unit in the Ministry of Agriculture, which has already deterred attacks from locusts, grasshoppers, Quelea birds, and rodents, as well as plant diseases. Such national projects are the easy part, Ms. Moremi says. Ensuring household security means increasing purchasing power and convincing farmers to grow where crops have rarely survived. ''Farmers are rational people,'' says Ms. Moremi. ''They know that corn is very problematic.'' Yet the people of Botswana are not easily discouraged. The country is recovering from six straight years of drought (from 1981 to 1987). An internationally recognized government response and a determined citizenry helped to prevent a human catastrophe. Although rural incomes plunged, malnutrition did not dramatically increase. ''Immediately after the drought broke, people went back to their plowing,'' says Moremi. ''There was a marked reduction in the number of beneficiaries of the direct feeding program. With agricultural inputs supplied by the government, the people are back working the lands.'' Although the government's ambitious plans to develop rural areas were interrupted by the drought, several agricultural experiments are already showing success and women are the key. ''Once they were motivated, there was nothing that could stop them,'' boasts UN expert Laketch Dirasse about the disadvantaged women who took part in an experimental training program. ''Given the opportunity, you * Origin: UNITEX --> Toward a United Species (1:107/501) --- Patt Haring | UNITEX : United Nations patth@sci.ccny.cuny.edu | Information patth@ccnysci.BITNET | Transfer Exchange -=- Every child smiles in the same language. -=-