Pearls of wisdom from former MoA top technocrat

In those years, Chimbombi and other technocrats battled to restore lustre to the country’s agricultural sector, an industry that at independence was the economic backbone, but has since struggled for national significance.

Despite the billions Government pumps into it annually, agriculture makes a very minimal contribution to the national economy and Botswana is still heavily dependent on other countries for many agricultural products. Farmers, known as the first-borns of Botswana, are a powerful lobby group and have even convinced Government to close borders to certain products. Their critics, however, point out that the farmers get to close the borders even when they cannot satisfy local demand.