A bitter harvest
How Basotho farmers are left holding the rotten bag
TEBOHO KHATEBE MOLEFI
LERIBE – In the cold storage rooms of the Tsikoane Fresh Produce Market Centre (the Northen Agrihub), the air hangs thick with suffocating stench of decay – piled high are the remains of a failed national experiment 5 603 heads of cabbage, now a blackened, slimy monument to broken promises.
The Northern Agrihub is a government-established facility designed to aggregate, package and market agricultural produce from local farmers, providing a vital link between producers and regional markets.
Just a few months ago, these vegetables represented hope, livelihood, and a step towards food sovereignty for smallholder farmers from Botha-Bothe, Berea, Mahobong, Peka, Kolonyama and Mphosong.
Today, they represent a loss of M84 045 and a crisis of confidence that threatens the very future of local commercial farming in Lesotho.
This scene of ruin is a direct, and bitterly ironic, consequence of a government policy designed to protect these very farmers. Mid-year, the government of Lesotho, in a move lauded by agricultural advocates, closed national borders to cabbage and potato imports from neighbouring South Africa.
The intent was straightforward, to spur local demand, empower local farmers and keep precious agricultural revenue within the country’s borders.
Instead, as detailed in two damning internal reports from the Northern AgriHub seen by this publication, the policy has backfired catastrophically. A combination of retailer boycotts, rampant illegal imports and a critical lack of strategic planning has left farmers with unsellable produce, pushing them deeper into debt and undermining national food security goals.
The Northern AgriHub’s report on the cabbage crisis, dated June/July 2025, reads like a post-mortem of a predictable disaster. Anticipating a surge in demand following the import ban, the Tsikoane centre received 5 603 heads of cabbage from farmers across the northern districts.
“Farmers delivered in good faith, mobilizing resources to support the market directive,” the report states.
That good faith was met with a harsh market reality. Local retailers, who had previously relied on consistent, graded South African produce, uniformly rejected the local cabbage.
They cited “low quality,” a complaint the report suggests was a convenient excuse to continue accessing cheaper or preferred imports.
“Evidence indicates illegal South African imports continued through porous borders, undermining the ban,” the report notes, highlighting a fatal flaw in the policy – a ban without enforcement is merely a suggestion.
With no contingency plan from the government – no alternative buyers, no guaranteed offtake agreements – the AgriHub was left scrambling. They managed to sell a mere 210 heads as animal feed and initiated a pilot project to shred and dry over 1 000 heads for livestock feed.
But it was a drop in the ocean.
The result? 5 393 heads – 96.3 percent of the entire stock – were left to fully rot. The estimated debt exposure for farmers, who incur an average production cost of M15 per head, sits at over M84 000.
Speaking to Public Eye, the Northen Agrihub’s marketing manager, Karabo Leshoele, described the scene as a “heart-breaking waste of effort and investment.”
He stated, “Our cold stores have become tombs for quality produce. This isn’t a failure of farming; it’s a failure of market planning. These farmers did everything right, only to be caught in a policy change without a safety net.”
The Hub, which operates under a government mandate, has compiled a detailed report on the losses and submitted it to the Ministry of Agriculture. However, they report a concerning lack of engagement.
“We have provided a full account of this disaster to the government, yet we are met with a deafening silence,” said Leshoele.
“This is not just spoiled vegetables, it is the livelihood of our community rotting away. We are urging the government to break its silence, acknowledge this crisis, and work with us immediately on a compensation and mitigation strategy. Our farmers cannot be left to bear this cost alone.”
The Agrihub awaits an urgent meeting with government officials to prevent a repeat of the situation and to develop more resilient policies for the agricultural sector.
The potato predicament: A reputational disaster
If the cabbage crisis was a story of neglect, the potato consignment that followed in July/August became a full-blown reputational catastrophe, detailed in the AgriHub’s second report.
The centre received 741 bags of potatoes from the Mokhotlong region with the mandate to secure the best possible price. Upon arrival, the problem was immediately apparent. The potatoes were “unwashed, ungraded and contained a mix of sizes and conditions (including rot).”
The reaction from major supermarket clients was swift and brutal – outright, public rejection. The issue exploded into a national media scandal, featured multiple times on Radio Lesotho and escalating all the way to the Minister of Agriculture, Thabo Mofosi.
The fallout was severe.
“Retailers used this rejection to lobby for the re-opening of borders for potato imports, threatening the entire local potato industry,” the report states. The incident didn’t just cause a financial loss; it damaged the reputation of Mokhotlong’s farmers and the Northern AgriHub itself, giving retailers a powerful justification to favour imports.
To salvage something, the AgriHub advanced M11 450 of its own funds to have labourers sort, wash, and repackage the potatoes. Of the original 741 bags, 141 were lost to waste. The remaining 600 had to be sold at a massively reduced average price of M55 per bag, down from the target M80.
After deducting their costs, the net proceeds payable back to the farmers were just M16 050.
The net effective price per original 10kg bag amounted to a meagre M21.66, a figure far below the cost of production. The venture, as the report concludes, “resulted in a significant financial loss for all parties.”
For seasoned observers of Lesotho’s agricultural sector, this disastrous outcome is frustratingly familiar. The country has a history of implementing well-intentioned but poorly executed import bans on various vegetables.
A similar ban several years prior also led to excesses of local produce that the market was unprepared to absorb, resulting in massive post-harvest losses. Each time, the pattern is the same – a sudden government announcement, initial farmer optimism, a rushed and uncoordinated harvest and then a painful confrontation with market realities – realities shaped by consumer habits, retailer supply chains and inconsistent quality.
These repeated crises create a vicious cycle. Farmers, burned by significant losses, become risk-averse and hesitant to scale up production for the next season. This lack of consistent, high-quality supply further justifies retailer reluctance to commit to local sources, keeping them dependent on South African imports.
The ban, therefore, achieves the opposite of its intention – it reinforces the very dependency it seeks to break.
Proposed remedies: A path away from the precipice
In July 2022, Lesotho’s Northern region saw the establishment of this agricultural market hub, an initiative aimed at promoting entrepreneurialism among local farmers, particularly the youth. Former Minister of Agriculture, Keketso Sello, stated that the centre is designed to advance agricultural commercialisation by improving smallholder farmers’ access to physical, economic, and social capital, as well as markets and training.
The hub was intended to bridge the gap between production and marketing, even facilitating cross-border trade. Speaking at this 2022 launch, Daniel Chakela, representing local farmers, welcomed the initiative, highlighting that it provides a dedicated marketplace for fruits and vegetables and is expected to significantly boost agricultural growth in the Leribe district.
But, today, the Northern AgriHub reports do not merely catalogue failure, they offer a clear, urgent, blueprint for reform. Their recommendations, centred on what they term “contagious planning” – ensuring all stakeholders are engaged early – provide a way out of this cycle of crisis.
The government must engage farmers, buyers, market centres, and border authorities before announcing interventions as policies crafted in isolation are doomed to fail. Clear communication of objectives and responsibilities is key to aligning expectations.
A ban on paper is useless. The government must deploy dedicated monitoring teams at border posts and establish community whistle-blower systems to report illegal imports. Without enforcement, the policy is hollow.
Retailers cannot be ignored too, they must be involved upfront to define clear, achievable quality standards (size, grading, packaging) so farmers know exactly what to produce. Securing binding purchase agreements beforehand would eliminate last-minute rejections.
Supporting the formation and strengthening of farmer cooperatives is crucial. Cooperatives can aggregate produce, reduce transport costs, meet bulk demand and invest in better post-harvest handling; providing farmers with timely information on orders allows for strategic harvesting.
The government must develop contingency strategies for unsold produce, such as partnerships with processing plants for drying, canning, or animal feed. Most critically, the reports advocate for the establishment of a government-backed Loss Insurance Fund to provide compensation to farmers during trade disruptions, ensuring a bad season doesn’t spell financial ruin.
A proactive media campaign is also needed to build consumer pride in local produce and transparently communicate the rationale behind supporting local farmers, safeguarding national food security.
The rotten cabbage in Tsikoane and the downgraded potatoes from Mokhotlong are more than just spoiled vegetables, they are a symptom of a deeper malaise in Lesotho’s approach to agricultural development. Government’s vision of food sovereignty is a noble and necessary one, but it cannot be achieved by decree alone.
It requires a thoughtful, collaborative, and well-resourced strategy that understands the complexities of modern supply chains and empowers farmers instead of exposing them to undue risk. The Northern AgriHub’s plea for immediate compensation for affected farmers – either in cash or equivalent inputs – is the first step to rebuilding shattered trust.
The second, more important step, is to finally learn from history. Without adopting the comprehensive reforms proposed, the next import ban will only lead to the same bitter harvest, eroding farmer confidence and pushing Lesotho’s dream of self-sufficiency further out of reach.
The choice is between continuing a cycle of failure or breaking new ground towards a truly sustainable and resilient agricultural future for all Basotho.
