The Botswana Agricultural Union (BAU) on Wednesday urged Zimbabwean farmers who have been ordered off their land by President Robert Mugabe to come to neighbouring Botswana.
BAU chief executive Bowetswe Masilo said white Zimbabwean farmers who planned to leave their land after an eviction order was served on 2 900 of them should be encouraged to help revive the ailing agricultural sector in neighbouring Botswana.
”These people are running away and they have not yet found land. I will encourage them to come and invest in the country,” Masilo said.
”The best thing that they could do is to try to form joint-ventures with the local farmers. And that would greatly benefit the agricultural sector in the country.”
Botswana, which is the size of France but has a population of 1,6-million people, has seen the agricultural sector’s contribution to the country’s gross domestic product fall from 65% at independence in 1966 to three percent at present.
A deadline for the 2 900 farmers to leave their property expired last Thursday, but most of the farmers defied the order. One farmer was on Wednesday forcibly evicted from his land by black settlers.
A delegation from the ruling Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) left for Zimbabwe on Wednesday to discuss the political and economic implications of the Zimbabwe land seizure programme.
The farming crisis in Zimbabwe has caused a diplomatic rift
between the two countries.
Zimbabwe last week complained after Botswana allowed 17 representatives of the Zimbabwe Commercial Farmers Union (CFU) to meet officials of the agriculture ministry in Gaborone. – Sapa-AFP