Forum global sur la sécurité alimentaire et la nutrition (Forum FSN)

Mme Milly Monkhei

Botswana University of Agriculture and Natural resources (BUAN)
Botswana

I will focus my contribution on question three "Have you had any experiences of linking research and policy regarding sustainable agricultural systems for nutrition?" sharing the Botswana experience, a middle income country. Research on technology adoption by small holder farmers in Botswana has revealed that small holder farmers did not adopt raw planting, a technology meant to increase yield per hectare of food staples (sorghum, maize and legumes).In the drive to improve small holder productivity government implemented a raw planting policy that got small holders to take up the technology as they were not to be given seed if they did not raw plant. This policy has seen small holder farmers raw planting and mono-cropping against the nutrition provision of their broadcasting method which ensured that many crops of different nutritive value were planted in one hectare. This is an example of conflicting efforts through policy dispensation. With broad casting small holder farmers were assured sustainable nutrition from a variety of crops that provided nutrition diversity, but with raw planting and mono-cropping the technology compromised nutrition diversity at house hold level for small holder farmers.

This says to us, it is very important to widely and in detail consider the implication and consequences of policies on different target groups before they are implemented, especially that in a heterogeneous population a one size fit all policy will never address nor achieve the intended end without appreciating and considering heterogeneity of the target population.