11/06/2026
FRENCH DELEGATION VISITS NARDI
A French delegation visited NARDI today at NARDI Headquarters in Sebele, led by Dr. Pennec Jerome from the French Embassy in Botswana.
The meeting began with NARDI CEO Prof. Julius Atlhopheng introducing NARDI's mandate. He shared that NARDI develops, adopts, or adapts various technologies. NARDI fosters strategic partnerships locally, regionally, and globally to provide solutions that meet agriculture-related needs in the country. He presented NARDI's seven flagships, which include: improving crop yields; seed development; laboratories (soil, plant, veterinary, and food); innovating animal production and nutrition; intensifying outreach; and optimizing the bioeconomy. All these aim to improve Botswana's food security, enhance agricultural productivity, improve livelihoods, and increase agriculture's contribution to the GDP.
Dr. Jean Marc Bouvet, Cirad - La recherche agronomique pour le développement (CIRAD)-Regional Director for Southern Africa and Madagascar, gave a brief background on CIRAD. He shared that CIRAD currently has 1,800 permanent officers and a total of 2,200 including attached research students. It operates with a budget of approximately €250 million per year, with 50% coming from the Ministry and 50% from CIRAD research work outputs. The budget is allocated as 50% for salaries and infrastructural services, while 50% goes into core work.
Dr. Bouvet further shared that CIRAD produces 1,000 peer-reviewed science papers annually and presents at conferences across many continents, mostly in Africa. It trains 400 PhD students per year, with 40% coming from the North and 60% from the Southern tropical region. CIRAD runs 900 projects annually, with the possibility of generating commercialisable outputs. CIRAD's thematic areas include Agroecological Transition, One Health Approach, Biodiversity, Climate Change, Territory-Based Approaches, and Food Systems.
Dr. Jerome Queste, European Union in Botswana (EU Represantative) and Resource Mobilization and Partnership Specialist at CCARDESA, also presented and shared possible areas of collaboration. The meeting further discussed potential projects for strategic, beginning with a Memorandum of Understanding and concept note sharing as the implementation initialization stage, ensuring that partnerships do not just gather dust on shelves. They mutually agreed that both organizations can benefit from their rich histories and current work.
CIRAD stands for Centre de coopération internationale en recherche agronomique pour le développement (in French). This is the French Agricultural Research Centre for International Development, working for the sustainable development of tropical and Mediterranean regions.
The National Agricultural Research and Development Institute (NARDI) is a Research Technology Organization (RTO) under the Ministry of Lands and Agriculture (MoLA).
