This project analyzes year-over-year trends in maize production, area harvested, and yield in Botswana from 2016 to 2023. Using visualizations and exploratory analysis, the goal is to uncover patterns, identify top-performing years, and offer practical recommendations for sustainable improvement.
Farmers have a difficulty in optimizing crop yields and improving profitability due to lack of insights into soil conditions and historical data.
- Analyze trends in maize production, yield, and area harvested.
- Identify the best and worst-performing years and investigate potential causes.
- Provide data-driven recommendations to improve productivity and sustainability.
- Tools Used: Python, Pandas, Matplotlib, Seaborn, Google Spreadsheets
- Data Sources: Ministry of Agriculture (Botswana), summarized dataset (2016–2023)
- Approach: Exploratory Data Analysis (EDA), Time-Series Visualization
- Maize production peaked at 339,648 tonnes.
- Achieved with 174,704 ha of cultivated land.
- Likely driven by favorable weather and increased inputs.
- Yield dropped to 317,558 kg/ha — the lowest in the dataset.
- Despite harvesting only 55,467 ha, productivity was weak, likely due to drought or poor resource distribution.
- Yield reached 789,401 kg/ha — the highest across the 8-year span.
- Production wasn't the highest, but land use was highly efficient.
- Significant shifts in land use affected total production:
- 2020: 293,014 ha
- 2022: 158,879 ha
Uploaded under
charts/folder
- Bar Chart: Maize Production vs Area Harvested (2016–2023)
- Line Chart: Maize Yield Trends Over Time
Farmers are advised to;
- Use climate-resilient seeds and smart irrigation to stabilize yield.
- Promote consistent land cultivation through government incentives.
- Study and replicate 2023's best practices to scale productivity.
- Improve data infrastructure to allow near real-time monitoring and decision-making.
Maysa Mothibi | Data Analyst