Botswana offers wildlife start-up stock to farmers to grow agro-tourism

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The Botswana government is offering wildlife start-up stock to local farmers to boost the country’s agro-tourism.

VOA quoted Botswana’s National Parks and Wildlife director Kabelo Senyatso as saying that Gaborone will run a pilot project between February and July this year that will see each farmer getting five animals per species.

The species that the farmers will receive include impala, gemsbok, zebra, eland and warthogs

“It is important to clarify that applicants should not restrict themselves to these species, people can keep whatever wildlife that they are keen to keep,” said Senyatso.

“It is also important to clarify that the scheme that we are referring to relates to the keeping of herbivores. It excludes carnivores.”

The initiative was first announced by the country’s president Mokgweetsi Masisi in 2020  as one of the ways to revive a tourism sector hard hit by COVID-19.

Botswana is one of Africa’s leading tourism destinations and the sector contributes 13% of the country's gross domestic product.