Jan Pierre Roos

Jan Pierre Roos, affectionally known as JP is a young Motswana male citizen, married with
3 children and one of the prominent commercial horticultural farmers in Botswana, born
in 1984 in a farming family benefited from a Botswana government farming program
“young farmers fund” which was promoted by the government owned citizen funding
agency “CEDA” in 2007 with funding of circa P450,000 (approximately USD34,000) to start
what would become one of the largest commercial farming businesses owned by a
Botswana youth. JP started the company with just 6ha under management and irrigation
farming onions, butternut and potatoes and to date the company manages 3 farms
across 2 locations in Botswana with over 400ha under irrigation employing over 200
people fulltime and supplying 70% of produce to local retail chain stores and 30% to
smallholder traders.
Born and raised in Botswana, JP completed his tertiary education at Friedenheim Agricultural
Estate. This was the very steppingstone that was needed to launch his passion for food
production. At a very young age JP started farming on his family land at the age of being
natured by his grandfather. Started off working in farm in South Africa growing mangoes and
tobacco before moving back to Botswana the family farming business producing oranges.
JP completed a Business and Marketing Strategy course in 2012 and also trained with the
Centre for the Development of Enterprise, successfully completing a seminar in Quality
Management, Process Improvement, Product Diversification and Financial Management.
In his words – “Working for my family business gave me a great head start, I have always appreciated
my father’s knowledge and expertise in farming oranges, and I viewed this as a learning opportunity to
grasp the business end of farming. The only problem I faced was that orange farming is very seasonal
and thus, I only work for three months out of a year, I wanted to work daily and feel that I was being
challenged enough because my priority was and is to feed Botswana, create income for communities,
impart knowledge and transfer skills to upcoming farmers