Ghanzi District

Ghanzi District produces 75% of Botswana's beef exports despite occupying just 5-6% of its land—and that concentration traces directly to 1898, when Afrikaner settlers claimed freehold farms along the fertile Ghanzi ridge while the rest of Botswana remained tribal territory. The result: an economic inversion where the smallest land fraction generates the largest agricultural output, and where land tenure determines everything.

The settlers arrived fleeing British rule after the Second Boer War, granted freehold blocks by Cecil Rhodes' British South Africa Company in exchange for establishing ranching outposts. The Ghanzi ridge offered rare abundance in semi-arid Botswana: underground water, calcrete soils, better grass. San people had hunted there for millennia, but British administrators declared them "nomadic" and therefore without land rights. The farms became racial enclaves—by 1970, Ghanzi was 90% white-owned despite Botswana's independence. San people shifted from hunter-gatherers to ranch laborers, working for Afrikaner bosses in an arrangement that preserved apartheid-era dynamics well past South Africa's 1994 transition.

The cattle economy that emerged remains extraordinarily efficient by African standards. Ghanzi ranches export primarily to EU markets, meeting veterinary standards that exclude most competitors. Botswana Meat Commission processing plants rely on Ghanzi's volume. The district's GDP per capita sits above national average—but that figure masks asymmetry. Ranch owners capture profits; San workers receive wages below national minimum, often paid in livestock rather than cash. A 2014 study found San households in Ghanzi averaged $120 monthly income versus $400 nationally.

By 2025, two forces are disturbing the equilibrium. First, climate change: droughts in 2015-2019 devastated herds, and the calcrete aquifers show signs of depletion. Second, land reform pressure: San groups organized as Cattle Syndicates have successfully applied for commercial farming plots, breaking the century-long monopoly. The government, conscious of optics, has begun transferring some leases to San cooperatives—though often the least productive land, and always lacking the infrastructure Afrikaner farms built over generations.

By 2026, Ghanzi faces questions of competitive exclusion in reverse: can San ranchers compete with established operations that control water, transport, and BMC relationships? Or does founder advantage—Afrikaners arrived first with capital and livestock—create insurmountable path dependence? Early results suggest the latter: San cooperatives struggle with drought, veterinary costs, and market access. The district that produces most of Botswana's beef may remain concentrated in the hands of descendants of 1898 settlers, regardless of policy intent. Territory claimed by force tends to stay claimed.