WOULD it not be ideal to live in a country as large as France, with a population of a little more than 2 million, a per-capita income of $17,000 (compared to the Philippines’s $2,765), and where diamonds could be dug up practically in your own backyard?
Well, the first three claims are true, but the fourth is not too far from reality, since the African country of Botswana has the Orapa mine, the largest diamond mine in the world in terms of value and quantity of carats produced annually. Wikipedia states that the Orapa mine is estimated to produce over $1.6 billion worth of diamonds in 2013.
Botswana is also the site of the Okavango Delta, a huge inland swamp in the central part of the Kalahari Desert, teeming with wildlife. It is one of the Seven Natural Wonders of Africa; it is also a Unesco World Heritage site.
Botswana is big on nature safari, and tourism is one of its main attractions. It has diverse areas of wildlife habitat. There are grasslands and savannas where blue wildebeest, antelopes, and other mammals and birds are to be found.
Chobe National Park in northern Botswana has the world’s largest concentration of African elephants. The park covers an area of about 11,000 square kilometers, and supports about 350 species of birds.
Chobe National Park and Moremi Game Reserve in the Okavango Delta are major tourist destinations. Other reserves include the Central Kalahari Game Reserve located in the Kalahari Desert in Ghanzi District; Makgadikgadi Pans National Park and Nxai Pan National Park are in Central District in the Makgadikgadi Pan.
For all its excesses, however, Botswana lacks many of the basic necessities in lifes and imports most of what its need, such as maize, corn and even milk, from South Africa and Zimbabwe.
Improving trade relations
AND that is why Ambassador Jacob Nkate, who is based in Tokyo but visits Manila often, is assessing the country’s potential as a source of agriculture cash crops and food-processing technologies.
“I think the Philippines is very strong in agriculture. It’s a place where we have tremendous potentials, but we’re still doing very poorly. I think what we have to do is take a few businesspeople to Botswana and introduce them to some Botswana farmers and see what they can do together,” Nkate said.
“We’re 2 million people in a country the size of France. We have lots of land. What we need are techniques for producing better,” he said.
“But, of course, the Philippines with 100 million people is big. If 1 percent of your people visit Botswana as tourists, that’s also another area that I’m pushing very hard,” he added.
After having himself accredited in June, Nkate wasted no time and led a trade and investment mission of businessmen from Botswana and opened a trade and investment-business forum here.
During a three-day stay, his group visited the Department of Foreign Affairs, Metropolitan Manila Development Authority, Department of Trade and Industry, Technical Education and Skills Development Authority, University of Santo Tomas and a tour of the food-processing plant of Juan Republic Food Inc.
The ambassador said that some 40 percent of land in Botswana, located in the east and northeast of the country, has fertile soil and plenty of water, which are ideal for agriculture production.
A fertile land
HE said his country’s main crops consist mainly of traditional staples, like maize and corn, but they do not produce any rice: “We produce some vegetables, but not enough. We want to produce cash crops, and we want to expand into other areas, including agro-processing.”
He said he is aware that the Philippines produces plenty of banana and pineapple for export, and says these are the kinds of cash crops he had in mind to be grown in abundance in Botswana.
“Yes, those are possibilities,” he explained. “We have places in Botswana that have lots of water and good fertile soil. We think we should do really something major in those parts, and then, of course, process and export them.”
“The eastern corridor constitutes about 20 percent of the land mass that is very fertile for agriculture, and then north-northwest about 20 percent [there is] lots of water, good climate and fertile soil. I’d say about 38 percent to 40 percent of Botswana is good for agriculture productions. There’s plenty of room for growth.”
He said he considered his visits to the different government agencies in the country to be a success, having met some facilitators from the local chamber of commerce, and having initially established some business relations.
“About this thing, you can’t do it in one fell swoop. You have to do it repeatedly, [this] relationship-building, people getting to know who you are, what you want, and you just persist and persist, but eventually something will come of it,” the envoy said.
Although based in Tokyo, Nkate said he wants to come often to the Philippines because both Botswana and the Philippines speak English, one reason why it’s easy to talk to people here and do business and socialize.
Talk leads to agreement
NKATE is proud that despite Africa’s various warring tribes, his country remains peaceful and orderly, having had a democratic and stable country since gaining independence from the United Kingdom in 1966.
“For the last 48 years, we have had no conflict, no political prisoners. We have a vibrant independent press, vibrant civil community, civil society, vibrant opposition political parties. We are open to debates, and we’re going to hold our 11th successive election on October 24, 2014,” he said.
When asked how the people of Botswana were able to maintain peace and order among themselves in a continent that is always rife with trouble and internecine warfare among the different tribes, Nkate let us in on a small secret: “We talk a lot.”
“There are lots of talks, consultations. We talk and talk and talk, and eventually you agree,” he explained. “Our culture is talk, talk, talk. Even the chief, the president, member of parliament and minister cannot make a decision on their own. They must call a committee of people. They must talk about it, and maybe they say to him: ‘Oh maybe we must consult the people on this one.’”
He said that his country was also able to maintain good relations with other countries by respecting their sovereignty and building friendships with them.
“We are nonaligned. We want to be just friends with all countries. We have a voice. We’re not afraid to speak. We speak about international affairs, like, for instance, in Palestine, but with respect to the rights of others and their sovereignty,” he added.
Having said that, Nkate expressed so much interest in going to a place that Botswana Honorary Consul General Philip J. Chien described to him as being, “a small volcano in the middle of a lake.”
We told him it’s probably Taal Volcano in Tagaytay, and we proceeded to describe to him details about the place. He agreed it was worth visiting, since it is only about two hours away from Manila.
He also wanted to see some of the famous beaches in Batangas.
He said he wanted to see Phuket, and was a bit surprised to hear that it is in Thailand, and not the Philippines. Instead, we volunteered that he go to Boracay instead.
And he nodded in agreement.
Image credits: Jimbo Albano