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From 6 July 2006, a graphic version of the current edition is available at the Daily News Online web site.

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Botswana Food Security Bulletin indicates that rainfall drastically declined during the month of January with larger part of the country experiencing monthly rainfall not exceeding 30mm.

The Bulletin says areas in almost the entire country received much below normal rainfal in January.

Only the area of around Mahalapye and Machaneng in the Central District, Jwaneng in the Southern, Shakawe and Gumare in the Ngamiland and Chobe district experienced normal rainfall.

It says, the aforementioned scenario resulted in erratic planting opportunities which were mainly confined to December month with almost no planting opportunities in January countrywide.

With January being dry, most of the crops planted towards the end of December failed to emerge and crops planted earlier had to experience continuous water stress with high possibility of crop failure.

According to the Bulletin, grazing is likely to be negatively affected countrywide by January poor rains.

The most hard hit areas being Kgatleng, Kweneg, Southeast and Southern districts, including Kgalagadi south and Boteti subdistricts.

The Bulletin states that, the total area ploughed by the end of December last year was 19 731 hectares which is less than 84 794 hectares planted during the end of December 05.

That shows a percentage decrease of the area ploughed in December 06 by 76.7 per cent as compared to the area in December 05.

The hectare ploughed was 6.6 per cent of 300 000 hectares which is the national communal baseline area.

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