The Principal Secretary in the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security, Mr. Nchakha Makara launched the Horticulture-Based Farming System on Friday.
This project falls under the Agricultural Productivity Program for Southern- Africa (APPSA).
In his remarks, Mr. Nchakha said horticulture-based farming is the branch of plant agriculture dealing with garden crops thus generally fruits and vegetable production.
He said the main objective of this project is to develop plant materials of high economic value, which will exhibit resistance, drought tolerance and markets as well as to promote technology transfer through the strengthening of institutional linkages locally and regionally.
He said the horticultural project will benefit farmers as it will work with a subset of the primary beneficiaries, lead farmers who will contribute to setting priorities and participate in farm trials.
Also Speaking, the World Bank Country Representative, Mr. Yoichiro Ishihara said he is delighted to be part of this initiative, adding that the aim is to improve productivity.
He mentioned that 60 percent of Basotho engage in agriculture and that 65 percent of them live in the rural area, however remarking that when looking at the economy, agriculture represents less than 10 percent and this is caused by low productivity.
Mr. Ishihara said climate change is one of the factors affecting production but noting that there are a lot of opportunities to harvest good crops in Lesotho because of her unique geography, commenting that Lesotho has a lot of water resources that can be used for irrigation.
He, therefore, urged the government and all stakeholders to excise their leadership and ownership to liberate this initiative.
On the same token, the Project Director, Mr. Mabusetsa Makau said the main objective of APPSA is to develop plant materials of high economic value, which will exhibit desirable traits in terms of yield thus pest and disease resistance and drought tolerance.
He noted that APPSA activities will be coordinated from the Department of Agriculture Research (DAR) while others will be coordinated at the four Regional centres of Mahobong which represents the Northern lowlands, Siloe for Southern lowlands, Mokhotlong for mountains/highlands and Nyakosoba for central foothills.
He said the APPSA project will collaborate with other National Agricultural Research Systems (NARS) intuitions in the country and these include the National University of Lesotho (NUL) and Lesotho Agricultural College (LAC) and other local partners like relevant ministries and NGOs while regionally will Angola as a collaborate partner.
The launch follows the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security expression of interest in 2017 to the participate in APPSA project.