Sheep Farming Botswana, Part One

Sheep farming Botswana, Part one

It was my brother, who the other day started talking about farming sheep, and it got me thinking....would it be worth it or viable to farm sheep in Botswana and what would be involved? When it comes to starting any enterprise the first thing that one needs to do is research. Research allows you to count the cost of an enterprise before you spend anything at all, it is of little use to start a an enterprise before counting the cost!

Counting the cost

1. Find out your Max Gross income. What does this mean? Basically you want to know how much is the max income your sheep will bring in, in one year or season before expenses. To find this answer I had to do some research, first I wanted to know how much could be got for one sheep, for this I went to Facebook and searched all the adverts of people buying and selling sheep in Ngamiland. I soon discovered that a common figure for a sheep was Bwp 1000.00 which was much higher then I imaged. The next bit of research that I did was to find out, how many lambs could a farmer expect to get from ten ewes in one year? Again I went for the max figure, that is saying that each ewe gives birth to twins and that there are no losses. This then leads us to conclude that ten ewes would give us 20 lambs that in 6 too 8 months would be sold for Bwp 1000.00 each, giving us the grand total of Bwp 20000.00.

Now this is a seriously inaccurate figure for the simple reason that its not realistic, lambs will die, you wont always get Bwp 1000.00 per sheep, not every ewe will have twins. However this is our  EMGI (Estimated Max Gross Income) this figure is important because now we know that, if we want too farm ten sheep and max 20 lambs, the seasons expenses  have to be way less then Bwp 20000.00 to make it profitable 

So how much does it cost to keep ten sheep and at max 20 lambs for one season? we will look into that in our next post, so please subscribe and if you have any thoughts or feelings drop us a comment!  

Drip irrigation the best watering method, farming Botswana

Recently i visited a farm where they just introduced drip irrigation, and i have to say i was amazed, the speed the crops grew was almost doubled in comparison to the sprinkler method that they were using before also there was way less water wasted. With a sprinkler method only a very small amount of water reachs the roots of the plant also water go,s all over the leaves of the crops which causes disease and rot, however with the drip method the water is directed right at the roots of the plant, hence using less water and preventing disease. Really if you can afford drip irrigation go for it, it is amazing, you will save water your crops will grow faster and you will have less disease,

Cabbage growing using drip irrigation 

The dangers of using chicken manure, Botswana farming

Todays post is about the dangers of using chicken manure when vegetable farming,
As farmers we know the high value of chicken manure in soil preparation so i am not going to tell you things that you already know.

However here is a little warning that we often over look, and that is that chicken's are famous for being carriers of mites, and some of these mites can attack plants, and of course this is not a good thing, in particular red spider mites, in fact often when you open a sack of chicken manure you can see these little mites crawling all over the place!

What can you do to avoid these mites?

Well first you could just stop using chicken manure or some farmers process there chicken manure by soaking it in huge drums of water, thus drowning all the mites and then mixing the soaked manure into there compost heap.

Well that was the Botswana farming tip for today, i hope you found it helpful!  If you did please subscribe of follow
More tips will be up next Monday
Thanks for reading

Best vegetables to grow in Botswana

So you have a small plot here in Botswana and you wish to grow a few vegetables to help feed your family or earn some extra cash.
What are the best vegetables to grow? Well we will look at this from two ways, first what is the easiest to grow and then what makes the most money.

What is the easiest vegetables to grow in Botswana?

On the top of this list we must put Rape. This hardy vegetable can cope with the heat of Botswana and also grows happily on a wide variety of different soils. It also grows very fast. If one takes the time to cultivate the soil first and put into the soil lots of cattle dung one will reap good crops in very little time. Another favorite is Swiss chard also growing very fast although not as popular as rape, you can read more on how to grow swiss chard. HERE

What is the most profitable vegetable to grow in Botswana?

We have two favorites on this list, first tomatoes. At around 10 pula per kg of tomatoes in Botswana you can earn a lot of money growing tomatoes. Learn more on Botswana tomato farming Here

Second on our list is cabbages. Not only can a farmer make up to 12 pula on a cabbage, cabbages are very hardy and easy vegetables to grow even here in sunny Botswana, learn more about cabbage farming in Botswana Here

How to plant tomatoes in Botswana part 1

Tomato growing in Botswana is somthing that all vegetable farmers in Botswana should look into. In some parts of Botswana farmers are getting paid over ten pula per kilo for tomatoes.

Yet what is needed to farm tomatoes successfully in Botswana? In the next few posts we will answer

How to grow tomatoes in Botswana soil preparation
When to plant tomatoes in Botswana.
What types of tomatoes are best for Botswana?
How to stake tomatoe plants in Botswana?
How to sell tomatoes in Botswana?

Make money small scale farming in Botswana, part 2

One of the greatest secrets of making money with a small scale farming enterprise, is to keep your overheads down and start producing produce as soon as possible. So lets take a brief look at how we can do just that. First of all,count the cost,this is just common sense yet it is amazing how many new farmers fail at this. So lets say as an example,farmer X wants to farm tomatoes. He should at the least do the following exercise. Costs Land what is the cost of the rent or if he owns the land what is the cost of the fencing or security Water what is the cost of water,this could include petrol for the pump Staff do i need staff? and how much will it cost me, Any expense should be included in his budget then since most crops take 90 days to harvest he should times his expected expenses by three months. That sum should be in the bank before even one seed is planted! So how to cut costs? Well one way to cut costs is to cut time! So how do we cut time? Well lets say our crops will take 90 days to harvest. You could cut a whole 30 days by planting your crops in seed trays at your house. That means that for your first month you can save on staff costs water costs at the farm and your crops will be much stronger when done in trays. Second we want to start making money as soon as possible so while we wait out our 90days for our main crop to mature.why not plant a second crop like rape, harvests in around 60 days and although it may not make as much money as your main crop it will help cover the costs.