1. 8 - 9 MAY, 2014, PRETORIA, SOUTH AFRICA
AfriGEOSS-EOpower-GEOGLAM Southern Africa Sub-Region Workshop on Agriculture .
8 - 9 MAY, 2014, PRETORIA, SOUTH AFRICA
COUNTRY REPORT: BOTSWANA
PRESENTER: MS. BASUTI MATHANGWANE
EMPLOYER: Min of Agriculture
TELEPHONE:

2. MINISTRY DETAILS Name of Country: Botswana
Name of Institute: Ministry of Agriculture
Postal Address: Private Bag 003, Gaborone
Physical address: Headquarter is located Plot Number: 4701,
Station Road, Gaborone
Telephone:
Internet:

3. Ministry of Agriculture `s Mandate
To develop a sustainable and competitive agricultural sector by: improving farm incomes, generating employment opportunities and raw materials for agric businesses; conserving agricultural natural resources,
through the promotion and adoption of appropriate technologies and
management practices.
VISION
Attain national food security and global competitiveness in agricultural products
MISSION
To improve agricultural productivity through technology development and transfer, diversification and commercialization, in order to promote food security. .

4. MINISTRY OF AGRICULTURE STRUCTURE
For information flow the Ministry has a website:
and a Call Centre: 1775 to complement other means of information flow.

5. Organization challenges
The Organization is facing serious challenges of lack of capacity and monitoring system to deliver services to farmers due to;
Shortage of skilled manpower
Shortage of updated data for monitoring
Lack of Agricultural monitoring resources
Lack of Agricultural Monitoring System .
Climate change .

6. (Department of Crop Production)
Human capacity
Available staff & technical level at the existing Organisation(2008) :MOA
(Department of Crop Production)

7. EARTH OBSERVATION (EO) DATA AVAILABILITY
EO Data available:
Satellite imagery ( ) at scale..
Ortho photographs (2002) at 1: scale.
AMESD agricultural services products; rainfall, NDVI etc.
Data Acquisition:
The ortho-photographs are flown after every 5 – 10 years for the whole country.
Urban areas and project areas are flown as required.
Satellite images are at cost.
Data Processing:
Visual interpretation
Commercial GIS applications
Open source GIS application

8. Data use for decision making
Required Information: spatial , digital and hard copies with high accuracy/ quality
Such as;
Topographic data for base maps
Land use
Soils and suitability
Crops data
Digital elevation model
Vegetation
Land cover
Formats: digital/ hardcopy

9. Data use for decision making
User needs Priorities for application development
Needs Funding, technology transfer, technical assistance/skilled
manpower.
The organization needs up to date satellite imagery and aerial
photographs.
There is also a need for image processing software and for
processing geographic data.

10. Data use for decision making
Capacity building in term of training staff on earth
observation techniques is required.
To come up with a crop yield forecasting and measuring
model using remote sensing data and other sources.
Development of databases and predictable models for
decision support mechanism
Remote Sensing & GIS facilities and products.

11. Data/Internet- Infrastructure
Organization`s Non - Spatial and Spatial data management:
System and Packages for spatial information : GIS, Esri products
Formats of (spatial)information: Shape files, Arc coverages, database files
Hardware ,INTERNET & network: are available in all Ministry Districts Offices country wide.
Image processing software: limited
Formats of non-spatial information: reports, bulletins, WEBSITE
Accessibility to the web: Good network

12. Data resourcing Existing protocols for data sharing: On request
Data sharing policy: No policy, only written requests are required
Data availability: Data is available for free from other sources
Ortho photographs are at cost.

13. overview on the Agricultural Monitoring (System)
The ministry has a variety of Agricultural Monitoring Systems created using the in situ data and earth observation data sources from within the ministry and from its Stake-holders. The systems are not integrated.
The following systems are available:
Livestock Identification and Trace-back Systems
Crops Farmers Information System
Farming calendar
Livestock calendar
Weather Forecasting and Early Warning System etc

14. overview on the Agricultural Monitoring (Gaps)
Lack of up to date high resolution images.
High costs of image processing software and digital satellite imagery
prohibits the application.
Absence of suitable and up to date database.
Lack of capacity to utilize remote sensed data.
Shortage of skilled manpower.

15. Overview on the Agricultural Monitoring ( Plans)
The Ministry is in the process of starting to use the Government
wide GIS Enterprise License.
The enterprise will assist in reducing software annual license fees.
The Ministry would like to establish modeling systems (such as crop
yield forecasting, soil erosion / degradation etc.).
The ministry plans to start a centralized Agricultural Information
System to manage its data and for easy data sharing and transfer.

16. Proposed AfriGEOSS point of Contact & contact details:
Ms Basuti Mathangwane (Principal Agriculture Scientific Officer – GIS)
Ministry of Agriculture
Department of Crop Production
Private Bag 003
Gaborone
Botswana
Tel: mobile: ;

17. THANK YOU