Monokoane champions agriculture to fight unemployment

Mohloai Mpesi

PEKA Member of Parliament, Mohopoli Monokoane, has urged Basotho, particularly young people, to embrace farming as a viable business, saying agriculture offers one of the country’s best opportunities to tackle unemployment and poverty.

Mr Monokoane made the remarks after planting 10,000 cabbage seedlings in the Mpharane area of Mohale’s Hoek as part of a demo project aimed at promoting commercial agriculture.

The MP, who also leads Khanya, a fledgling political movement that advocates agriculture as a pathway to self-reliance and food security, said the project had originally targeted 100,000 cabbage seedlings but had to be scaled down because of a shortage of suitable land.

He was addressing supporters during Khanya’s ongoing nationwide constituency consultations, which are intended to gather public input for the movement’s policy agenda ahead of its official registration as a political party.

Mr Monokoane said agriculture remained a largely untapped economic opportunity capable of creating jobs and transforming rural livelihoods.

“There is a lot of money in agriculture. It is high time we started thinking big. Most people believe farming is for the poor, but that is wrong. Our youth must get into agriculture. Let us create jobs through agriculture,” he said.

To illustrate agriculture’s commercial potential, Mr Monokoane said his farm in Peka sells about 5000 cabbages every week, generating more than M50,000 in revenue.

“The food we have just eaten was produced in Peka. We must grow our own food and stop importing so much of it. We must produce our own chicken and pork in Lesotho. Getting into agriculture will give us a living,” he said.

He said expanding commercial farming would strengthen food security in rural communities, which continue to rely heavily on imported food from neighbouring South Africa.

“How do we bring about real change for our beloved Kingdom? Farming in Lesotho is still largely done on a small scale, is rain-fed and mostly for household consumption. The majority of Basotho in rural areas still depend on food imported from South Africa. How, then, do we create jobs in the rural areas?

“If we can find solutions to create jobs in rural areas, Lesotho can change. The country can achieve food sustainability and self-sufficiency. We can move from subsistence to commercial farming.

“We can grow maize and sorghum and add value to them instead of simply selling raw produce. Wool and mohair can also be processed locally instead of being exported raw. Exporting them raw puts us at a disadvantage when we could be making blankets, jerseys, carpets and other products from them. That alone could earn us up to ten times more income,” he said.

Mr Monokoane said Lesotho could also expand exports of high-value vegetables, berries and fruit if greater investment was made in irrigation infrastructure.

“We are running these projects here so that people can see what Khanya is really about. This particular project alone is expected to employ more than 40 young people,” he said.

The nationwide farming project was launched in Hlotse on 5 July 2026. Mr Monokoane said the plan was to train at least at least 20 youths per district on commercial farming, who would then create jobs for others. He said their next stop was Quthing on 16 August.

Khanya deputy leader and Matala MP, Dr Tšeliso Moroke, said the movement had deliberately postponed registering as a political party so it could first consult Basotho on the country’s challenges and possible solutions.

“Khanya is still an idea because it is not yet an officially registered political party. This is important because many people approach you selling a ready-made vision and asking you to simply follow their political parties.

“Khanya is for everyone who understands that they want a changed Lesotho. Once you buy into this idea, you become, in a sense, a founder of Khanya.

“Some people urged us to form a political party straight away, but I felt that a political party is a serious undertaking, and the challenges facing this country need proper thinking to solve. That is why we created this platform — for people to bring forward their own ideas,” Dr Moroke said.

Khanya’s consultative drive comes against the backdrop of persistently high unemployment, particularly among young people. According to World Bank estimates, Lesotho’s overall unemployment rate stood at about 16 percent in 2024, while youth unemployment remained above 30 percent.

In July 2025, the government declared a state of disaster over the socio-economic impact of youth unemployment.

Although agriculture employs a large proportion of Lesotho’s rural population, the sector remains largely subsistence-based, with the country continuing to import significant volumes of food, particularly from South Africa.

Khanya argues that commercialising agriculture, investing in irrigation and adding value to commodities such as wool, mohair, maize and sorghum could create thousands of jobs, strengthen food security and reduce Lesotho’s dependence on imports.

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