Diversifying the farm income, Farming Botswana.

Diversifying the farm income

Making money while farming can have its own challenges, for example imagine if you are a cabbage farmer and a hail storm destroys your crops a month before harvest! How will you pay the bills? And so if you look at successful farmers you will find that they diversify in other words they don't put all their eggs in one basket. So as a farmer you must ask yourself, if my main crop fails will I still be able to pull through. Will I be able to pay the bills?

How to Diversify?

Well lets say you are Cabbage farmer, every month you plant out 2000 cabbages, this is your main source of income, in addition you decide to plant 5000 heads of Garlic, since garlic will take around 90 days or more to harvest and in Botswana you will only be able to get one set in, in a year. Hence your 5000 garlic is just a low maintenance back up. Of course you will still want to diversify even more. Can you get a few Pigs? or maybe some Chickens? At the same time you need to remember that as a farmer you only have so much time and most of your time will be spent on farming your cabbages, so look for things that your farm can do or produce that's not time consuming that will supplement the farm income.

One way many farmers in South Africa do this is by setting up guest accommodations on their farms, I highly recommend that every farmer attempts to do this, it does not have to be fancy accommodation It just has to be clean. Even if you built a traditional mud hut put a nice clean bed in it and built a simple outdoor shower and toilet you can earn an additional income. You may wonder how to market such an investment, well you have to use technology. One of the most common ways of marketing a small guest room or campsite these days is to use an online App called Airbnb you can signup for it here for free: Sign up here, to host your guest room or campsite on Airbnb many people use this app when traveling these days because its affordable and there are many benefit's and perks that come with using it.  Of course if you just want to use the Airbnb app For traveling You Can sign up here,  if you do use my link you will get almost five hundred pula travel credit on your new account, that you can use when you book your next trip. I personally use this app and I absolutely love it.

In todays world as farmers we must diversify in order to be successful farmers, remember you not just a farmer! you are also a business man/woman.

Here are some other ideas.

Farm Watermelons 
Farm Sheep
Make money online in Botswana
Grow Carrots
Grow Cabbages
Grow Green Peppers
Grow Swiss Chard
Farm Garlic

as always thanks for reading please follow share with your friends or leave a comment, or question.

Cabbage pests and disease's Botswana farming tips

Cabbage pests and disease's Botswana farming tips

Recently a reader of this blog asked the question: what are some of the diseases that cabbage farmers have to deal with in Botswana?

Well each farmer, often depending on location and weather, will find that his cabbages face different diseases and pests. Hence i will not here write out a list of all the diseases and pests that affect cabbages, rather we will just take a look at a few common cabbage diseases and pests that affect most Botswana farmer's.

1. Damping off
Seedlings will collapse with dark water-soaked stems soon after transplanting. Damping off is a fungus that lives in the soil, particularly where humidity is high.
So make sure the soil is well drained.
Don't plant out seedlings in the heat of the day, rather plant out seedlings in the late evenings.
Don't plant out in cold water soaked ground.

2. Cut worm's
Seedlings are eaten or cut off near soil level. Cutworms are gray grubs that can be found curled under the soil. They chew stems, roots, and leaves.
Also the larvae of the dung beetle, can also be a very big problem if you use kraal manure, goat/cow dung.
Most agriculture shops sell sprays/powders/baits.
However just by keeping a clean farm one can often avoid having to much of a problem, keep compost heap away from main farming/growing areas. Dont use dung straight from the kraal, allow it to dry in the sun, and powder it.

3. Aphids
Spray regularly, ants also farm aphids, so destroy ant nests with baits or powders, keep up this practice only in the vicinity of your field and only if this problem appears.

Basically in conclusion, keep your farm clean, remove weeds don't allow piles of garden waste to build up, make sure the ground is well drained, don't plant cabbage s under tree's. Don't use pest control unnecessarily.

Birds can also be a big problem to cabbage farmers, to learn how to deal with them, you can check out this article: Birds and cabbages

Cabbage farming tips, Botswana part 2.

Botswana cabbage farming tips part two.

Once you have transplanted your young cabbage seedlings out into your field,you will sadly, probably discover that the wild bird population will start to decenend upon your crops and start biting the growing point or head off each cabbage plant!
So what is to be done?

Well i tried first a scare crow, then hanging old music cds off strings hanging about the field, nothing worked, so finally i put up walls of shade netting around the cabbage patch,this was the best method that i found that actually worked well kind of lets say it worked 65% since most birds felt uncomfortable in the field because

1.the shade netting was always moving from the wind

2.they could not see what was happening around them

So yes birds are cabbages number one problem in northern Botswana anyway, so please if you have found any solutions to prevent them pesky birds please leave a comment

And botswana-cabbage-growing-tips-part-1 for all of you who have not yet read it.
Of course birds are not the only pest to attack cabbages, so here is an article that discusses the common cabbage diseases and pests that affect cabbages in Botswana: The common cabbage pests and disease's for Botswana

Make the most of the rains, botswana farming tips

Rain is finally falling across botswana, and lots of you may be runing for your plows in order to start planting. Hopefully most of you have already plowed,although this is not looking like a great year with regards to rain, however there is good news in this for some of you! And that is, if you do get a good crop you should have no problem selling it at a good rate.

So heres a few tips to help you get the most of this years rains.

1. Cultivate, yip loosen up that topsoil so that the rain water will sink down to the roots and this will allow the plant to make the most of the rain that does fall.

2. Remove those weeds. There is only so much water, dont let it go to waste by watering weeds,

3. Dig in compost, however make sure its well broken down compost other wise it will start composting around the plants, and that will cause the plant to even die. Well composted soil will hold water longer. Read Here to find what vegetable's grow well in Botswana

All the best.