Africa-Press – Botswana. Government has made two livestock purchases that included 162 beef cattle from Texas, US at a cost of about P21 million in May 2023, as well as 92 beef cattle and 150 dairy goats from Australia at a cost of about P33 million in May 2024, Assistant Minister of Lands and Agriculture informed Parliament.
Dr Edwin Dikoloti informed Parliament that the ministry had plans to procure 100 dairy cattle from Brazil during the 2024/25 financial year.
He said the budget lines used to purchase stock from the US was development budget for 2022/23 while that from Australian was bought using recurrent budget in the 2023/24 financial year.
The proposed procurement of dairy cattle was going to be funded through the development budget of the 2024/25 financial year, Dr Dikoloti said and explained that the procurement method used for these purchases was direct procurement method as directed by the Procurement Act No 24 of 2021.
He said all the necessary protocols were followed since a scouting team had representations from relevant disciplines such as procurement, animal breeding, veterinary and legal.
Dr Dikoloti further explained that the procurement method used was the most cost effective and noted that when procuring biological assets, generic specifications and physical inspections were core hence scouting was done to ensure the right or best animals would be procured.
Also, he said in recent years, the ministry had been procuring replacement bulls for production of semen, mainly from South Africa but since the outbreak of Foot and Mouth Diseases in South Africa, which continued to date, it had been a major challenge to bring in good genetics from the region hence a decision to purchase livestock overseas.
He said since the young bulls had become of age, their training for semen tapping had commenced and so far, a total of 49 459 semen straws had been produced.
Dr Dikoloti said taking into consideration that this was locally produced semen, farmers would be able to access the germplasm at much an affordable price compared to that of imported semen.
In order to continue improving the quality of local livestock breed and build the dairy nucleus herd, the ministry intends to make additional purchases of livestock from abroad as and when the need arises, Dr Dikoloti said but explained that due to insufficient funds, the ministry halted plans to procure 100 dairy cattle from Brazil.
Bobiwa MP, Mr Taolo Lucas had among others wanted to know of all purchases and proposed purchases of livestock from overseas in the past two years and if the ministry intended to continue with the proposed purchase if any.
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