Namibia is mostly desert and does not have an ideal climate for many crops. But two entrepreneurs, Philip de Wet and his business partner Israel Jona, wanted to investigate the possibilities of diversifying agriculture in the Kavango Region. Three crops that came to mind for feasibility studies were pineapples, bananas and table grapes.
Table grapes are already being farmed in the south of the country and bananas cannot be canned, so they decided to concentrate on looking into the possibilities of farming and canning pineapple. Nearly three years of intensive research on an experimental farm has shown that large-scale pineapple farming is feasible in Namibia.
Pineapple is is one of very few crops that can be planted and harvested throughout the year. This would mean no off-season for workers and a constant cash flow within a short period after the first planting.
De Wet planted 1 000 plants of the Smooth Leaf Cayenne species and monitored them closely over the next two years. The variety is particularly suited to canning. In December 2006 the first crop of about 1 000 pineapples was harvested.
The idea is to establish three commercial farms under irrigation in the Kavango Region. These farms would provide 140 jobs, of which more than half will be for women. An important objective of the project is to train local subsistence farmers in all aspects of pineapple production. They will then serve as out-growers for the canning factory.
The training will be executed in cycles, with 70 annual newcomers who will receive two years of training. In this way, the three commercial farms will help develop more small-scale farmers, most of whom will be women. Once they have finished their training and are back on their own farms, they can grow a variety of crops and the factory will provide a market for them.
The factory is expected to receive 21 000 tonnes of pineapples a year during the start-up years of the commercial farms. It will have a cannery and a juicing division, with the products mainly being exported to Europe. The first pineapple plants will be planted this year and the factory
will be built next year, as the plants take two years to yield their first fruit.
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