Botswana’s lifting of ban on SA vegetable imports widely welcomed

Botswana’s unbanning of South African vegetable imports has been widely welcomed as a positive move for South African farmers and consumers in Botswana.

The new Botswana administration lifted the ban put in place to protect their agriculture sector.

Experts, however, say the move worked against the Botswana nationals as vegetables were in short supply and prices increased.

Agbiz Chief Economist Wandile Sihlobo says, “What we have seen now is that while in South Africa, in the past month for example, vegetable prices were in deflation, in Botswana, vegetable prices were rising by around about 13%, while in SA 2.8% or so. So, there have been those consumer pressures. Now with the lifting of the ban, it does mean that consumers in Botswana can afford high quality and affordable vegetables from SA, equally for SA though. This will be beneficial to farmers, because during the period when we had this ban, we saw a decline in SA’s vegetable exports. There have also been price pressures in the local market. So, with these developments, it will be a win for SA farmers.”

Clive Garett from the Tomato Producers organisation has welcomed the unbanning of South African vegetable exports to Botswana but has expressed concern about the flouting of regional deals.

Garett says Botswana is a fairly small market for South African produce. He says the banning by Botswana of South African products violated the SADC Free Trade Agreement.

He says the embargo denied Botswana consumers access to fresh vegetables all year round.

“The previous government in Botswana was doing that to try and protect their own producers, but I mean they completely missed the mark. As I said, you cannot produce tomatoes in Botswana for 12 months a year. It simply gets too hot. You can possibly produce tomatoes in Botswana for 4 or 5 months a year. The rest of the year, then you’ve got no production. What they were trying to do is they were trying to protect their own farmers to try and grow the industry. I think they have come to the realisation that it’s actually hurting the populace of Botswana in that people don’t have access to fresh vegetables,” explains Garett.

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