Southern African Countries Record Reduced Cereal Production in 2019

Namibia, Malawi and South Africa saw a decline in cereal production of about 65,000 metric tonnes compared to 2018, a report has shown.

These are preliminary findings under the crop production and vulnerability assessment report for Southern Africa, which was presented at the joint meeting of Southern African Development Community (SADC) ministers responsible for agriculture, food security and fisheries and aquaculture taking place in Windhoek, Namibia, on June 3rd 2019.

According to the report, the three countries recorded a total of 153,000 metric tonnes of cereal for the 2018 season and only 88,000 metric tonnes for 2019 crop season.

Xinhua

Namibia's 2019 Maize Harvest A 'Catastrophe'

In the absence of the much needed late rains in March, maize producers in Namibia will only be able to supply less than 30 percent (some 30 000 tonnes) of local demand. This will be some 25 000 tonnes less than last year when the country harvested 57 000 tonnes and supplied 47 percent of domestic demand.
The CEO of Namib Mills and Namib Poultry, Ian Collard, says Namibia requires roughly 120 000 tonnes of white maze for human consumption and some 50 000 tonnes of yellow maize for animal fodder.

... Namibia will have to import some 180 000 tonnes of maize this season. The most lucrative of these products is white maize, and the local marketing scheme ensures local millers must first use all local white maize before the deficit can be imported.
Due to the government’s agreement with producers and manufacturers the harvest increased from some 5 000 tonnes in the 1990s to more than 10 times that in 2018, but this season everything has been undone.

Collard says yields are lower in Namibia due to rainfall, soil quality, farm practices as well as the fact that only non-genetically modified organism (GMO) seed is allowed to be planted in the country.

Full article...

Namibia: Hydroponic Grain Sprouts To Counter Drought-Caused Forage Shortage

As farmers clutch at straws to save their livestock in the face of a crippling drought gripping the country, a Namibian company has thrown them a lifeline.

Agritech Namibia is training farmers in hydroponics to produce fodder to be harvested in eight days. This is growing plants in water without any soil.

“We have been training farmers in hydroponics fodder production and we believe this can help them save their livestock at a fraction of the costs of conventional feeds,” said one of the instructors, Lawson Manyika.

So severe is the drought that president Hage Geingob declared it a state of emergency and the government set aside N$570 million (1 US$ = 14.86N$: June 2019 for mitigation programmes.

Manyika said in the face of the drought and high costs of feed, hydroponics fodder gives farmers an affordable and sustainable source of fresh fodder to see the livestock through their drought.

“With hydroponics we grow fodder from maize or barley and harvest in eight days.In fact, from day four it can be fed to poultry, from day six to rabbits and on day seven or eight to cattle, goats and sheep,” he said and advised farmers they can use untreated maize from granaries, as long as it can germinate. He said 40 kilogrammes of seed can give a farmer 400-500 kilos of fodder in seven to eight days.

Explaining the process, Manyika said seed is soaked in water for four hours to absorb enough moisture for germination. It is then put in a germination chamber for 24 hours until sprouts appear, then it is moved to growing trays.

“The seed has enough nutrients and energy for germination and when shoots appear it is able to survive to a certain stage.

“By the third day the plants will be five to 10 centimetres and from day four to six they will reach 20-25 cm. At this stage the seed will still have some nutrients stored so the fodder can be fed to poultry, rabbits and pigs.

“By day seven and eight the plants will be 25 to 30 cm and the seed will be depleted of nutrients. This is the time to harvest for cattle before the farmer incurs extra costs on fertiliser,” Manyika said.

Full arrticle...

Drought causes massive reductions in Namibia cereal production

A large swathe of southern Africa experienced below-average rainfall in the 2014/15 summer cropping season, causing big drops in the yields of many staple and other crops.

A report released by the Namibian government indicates that communal areas of mostly small scale subsistence farming experienced maize production reductions of as much as 80% below average, and 73% below harvests for the 2013/2014 season. Even in areas of large scale commercial farming, the maize harvest showed a drop of 46% less than last season’s harvest and 12% below the average production.

The national coarse aggregate production (maize, millet, sorghum and wheat) is estimated at 67 800 tonnes, reflecting a substantial decrease in the harvest of about 46% below the average production and 49% lower than last season’s harvest. (...more)

 Even in normal times a large coastal desert and a generally hot, dry climate contribute to Namibia having among the world's lowest maize yields of less than half a tonne a hectare.

African Agriculture

Indebted Nambian grape farm faces liquidation

Among other debtors it presently can't pay, Komsberg Farming owes the Agricultural Bank of Namibia N$133 milliion (US$15 million).

Komsberg Farming grows grapes and dates for export on a 33,000 hectares estate. The company was placed under provisional liquidation in July after it was found to be “factually and commercially insolvent.”

The company disputes the amount owing to Agribank, and pleads that there are investors who are willing to inject capital into the floundering operation.

Agribank has filed to join the earlier liquidation suit against Komsberg Farming by Louis Group South Africa, another unpaid creditor. The company also owes unpaid taxes.

African Agriculture

Water woes, legal issues leave 20 Namibia farms unoccupied

by Irene !Hoaës
The Ministry of Lands and Resettlement has confirmed that up to 20 farms (translating into 37 farming units), lie unoccupied after they were allocated to their intended beneficiaries since 2005. Most of the farms were allocated between 2005 and 2010.

The majority are in the Karasburg district of the Karas Region, while a few are in the Lüderitz, Bethanie and Keetmanshoop districts.

According to the Acting Permanent Secretary of the ministry, Dr Nashilongo Shivute, many of these units are unoccupied due to lack of functional water infrastructure, while three units are unoccupied due to a pending legal matter.

Shivute said the problem is prevalent all over the country, although this happens mostly in the Karas Region, where the ministry acquired 71 farms.

Shivute said more than 90 percent of the farm beneficiaries are from Karas, Hardap and Omaheke regions, while a few are from Khomas, Otjozondjupa and the Northern Communal Areas (NCA).

She admitted that the problem is due to bureaucratic procedures, whereby farms remain unoccupied for a long period of time, and hence they risk vandalism. In addition, Shivute said, farms are demarcated into a number of farming units, thus, some farming units may not have functional water infrastructure, by resettlement or allocation. She said that her ministry was attending to the problem and has been implementing a major water infrastructure rehabilitation programme since 2007.

At least 20 percent of the N$50 million annually allocated for land acquisition is used for infrastructure development.

A total of 141 farms are currently being rehabilitated under Phase 1 of the project and an amount of more than N$40 million has been spent on water infrastructure rehabilitation programme over the past four years, Shivute said.

According to her, the number of unoccupied farming units could have been more than 60 if the major water infrastructure development programme had not have been implemented.


Many critics of Namibia’s land reform programme blame the dilapidation of farming infrastructure on the lengthy process involved in buying, demarcating, and allocating farming units to beneficiaries.

Namibia has inherited a skewed pattern of land distribution. Thus it is trying to address this pattern through its land reform programme, which is viewed by many Namibians as very slow and frustrating.

New Era 

Land reform progress slow in Namibia

by Catherine Sasman

Despite claims by Namibian Minister of Lands and Resettlement Alpheus !Naruseb that the land reform programme is on track, the situation on the ground reads differently, insisted civil society organisations at a weekend indaba on land.

The Evangelical Lutheran Church of the Republic of Namibia (ELCRN), Nangof Trust, the Namibia National Farmers Union (NNFU), and grassroots organisation for the landless //Naosan /Aes, concluded that land reform in fact seems not to be a government priority.

According to the Lands Ministry's statistics, 293 resettlement farms were bought at a cost of N$560 million since independence, resettling 4 000 beneficiaries, with an estimated 200 000 Namibians indicating that they want access to land to engage in productive agricultural activities.

The civil organisations concluded that there is a "complete lack of vision" for the resettlement programme", adding that the land reform programme has been divorced from agricultural production, and demanded for a complete review of the criteria for resettlement.

NNFU executive director Oloff Munjanu suggested that the current resettlement criteria is widening the gap between rich and poor blacks, urging for an audit on the socio-economic impact of resettlement so far.

Government indicated that low budgetary allocations and uncontrolled prices of commercial farms on offer meant that it could not buy up more land. And yet, said the civil society organisations, large tracks of land belonging to absentee landlords remain unoccupied, and that, as a case in point, 36 farms bought for resettlement purposes in the Karas region have still not been allocated.

Furthermore, they said a mechanism must be devised to identify un-utilised or underutilised commercial farms of absentee landlords for expropriation.

The organisations suggested that ancestral land rights should be evoked as part of the land reform programme, which is a departure from the recommendations of the 1991 national land conference upon which Government's land reform efforts are hinged.

They further said Government's inability to deal with illegal fencing, particularly in northern Namibia, has led to a scenario where those squeezed off land compete with others for resettlement further south.

Moreover, said the organisations, Government is slow to exploit the full potential of communal areas, arguing that some interventions are "misplaced and a waste of scarce resources", such as the 20-hectare farming units in particularly livestock areas.

They called for a comprehensive package of support to communal areas to address tenure security, infrastructure development, fencing and roads.

Government was called upon to resolve the tribal disputes in the Okavango region that has denied support for development of more than 42 farming units to communal farmers.

The pending eviction of Audabib squatting communities now moved to November 21 was discussed, and the gathering extended an urgent call on Khomas governor Samuel Nuuyoma to intervene.

It said a stakeholders forum must be convened by Government between the "so-called" title holders and the affected community for a lasting solution.

Other communities in the former Rehoboth gebiet facing eviction are in Stinkwater, â‰Hatsamas and Tsumis Park, which lead ELCRN's Uhuru Dempers to suggest that the "crisis cases" of the gebiet be dealt with comprehensively, instead of in a piecemeal fashion.

The indaba bemoaned the fact that land reform is not reflected as a key strategy in Government's poverty reduction plan, or the third National Development Plan (NDP 3).

A task force was formed to coordinate and monitor the implementation of recommendations of the indaba.

This task force was also mandated to call for a consultative forum with local and regional authorities, including governors and the lands ministry officials, to discuss the plight of small-scale farmers in municipal or town lands.

The Namibian

New farmer thrives in Namibia

by Albertina Nakale

Michael Iyambo is a young emerging commercial farmer in Namibia who each week generates about N$138 000 from delivering watermelons to retail outlets like Pick ‘n Pay. Fruit and Veg Namibia Farmers Market and OK Foods are also in the stable of Iyambo’s growing clientele.

Iyambo, who previously worked at a local bank as a credit analyst, decided to make money through farming in horticulture. He now owns Oshikoto Fresh Fruit and Vegetables on Farm Concordia 876, some 70 km from Tsumeb, an established agricultural business that has been operating since 2005.

He grows cabbages, watermelons, butternuts, sweet potatoes, tomatoes, citrus, oranges, spinach, green peas, and eggplant.

The farm is 3 241 hectares but he farms on 30 hectares and also rears goats and some cattle.

Currently, watermelons are in season and his two trucks are on the road making deliveries around the clock to meet demand.

He says he invested N$10 million in the project from which he harvests 6 000 watermelons each week. A watermelon costs N$23 on average-raking in revenue of N$138 000.

This emerging commercial farmer has 2 000 citrus trees and his target is 10 000.

“I call my citrus my Old Mutual and Sanlam (life insurance) policies because I will harvest them later. In this business, you need to decide what you want to sell and how you want to sell it. If you grow a lot of vegetables, then you can make money,” he enthuses.

Iyambo has a staff complement of 45 seasonal and 15 permanent employees.

However, he said, his trees were affected by frost this year. He lost about N$700 000 in the process. He also faces the challenge of flocks of birds that devour his crop.

Every month, he harvests cabbages from a two-hectare piece of land. Currently, he has planted watermelons on a four-hectare plot and sweet potatoes on nine hectares.

He expects to harvest 65 000 watermelons at the end of this year.

Iyambo is in the process of de-bushing 60 ha to expand his farm

He is using two irrigation systems, the drip and micro-jet.

His business includes a seed nursery from which the seedlings of the various crops are initially nurtured and transplanted.

New Era

Tempers flare over land allocation in Namibia

by Magreth Nunuhe

Tensions are running high in Groot Aub, Namibia over the alleged allocation of land to people with white-collar jobs in capital city Windhoek who have flocked to the settlement but are now being looked at with contempt by the original inhabitants.

Arie Frederick, the Khomas Regional Councillor for Windhoek Rural, convened a meeting between the people born in Groot Aub and the “settlers.” There was a heavy police presence at the meeting where Frederick met residents to discuss burning issues troubling the small community which included... the land allocation issue.

The land issue seems to have created major hostility among residents as those born in Groot Aub are angry about new settlers being allocated land while they are told land allocation has been frozen.

“Which committee gives erven (urban plots)? If I can’t get a business erf here, then nobody will!” said one angry resident.

Another resident asked why some people had acquired three to four erven while others had nothing.

“Is it being a Namibian citizen or is it being born in Groot Aub to get land?” asked one of the new settlers, whose question was met with hostile remarks.

Cicel Titus, a community activist, read a letter addressed to the Groot Aub Development Committee written by the Khomas Regional Council in which it was decided to freeze all new land allocations in 2003 following a huge influx of people to Groot Aub. The letter, dated August 17, 2009, ordered that until the Regional Council reconsiders the decision, no farming plots or erven would be allocated.

Frederick said everyone had a right to live where they want and that the only problem was the procedure used to acquire land in Groot Aub. He gave an example of Windhoek where a lot of people were not born there but were able to get erven.

The councillor said he had a long list of people waiting to get plots while others were giving out erven left and right.

“While others are on the waiting list, the place is getting full. I have given no one instructions to do things on behalf of my office,” he added, warning residents that he would give orders to the police to stop anyone seen building illegally.

New Era

Israeli sets up greenhouse farm in Namibia

by Albertina Nakale


An Israeli farmer, Rovi Savir, four months ago brought greenhouse technology to Namibia through Katima Farm in the Caprivi Region located close to the Zambezi River.


Savir secured a 10-year lease agreement of the farm from Katima Mulilo Town Council four months ago for horticultural production. It will cost him N$112 000 (US$16 000) to construct a structure half a hectare big.


He plans to erect two greenhouses over two hectares for crop production.


So far he grows potatoes, tomatoes, cabbage and onions and plans to add lettuce. He plans to sell his produce to northern Namibia, especially in Katima Mulilo.


“Potential is there to succeed. The system can produce 365 days per year. We have not harvested yet but our first harvest will be cabbage at end of this month. Katima lies between four countries, which gives the project a lot of potential.


“All the food at the moment comes from South Africa. We can supply them food. We must stop thinking about a lot of hectares, locals can not afford heavy machinery. Government can assist them to produce crops using greenhouse technology. We want to partner with government and share the risks,” he said.


Savir could, however, not shed light on the amount he needs from the partner, saying it is best to grow the idea first.


The Israeli farmer recently presented his novel idea to the Ministry of Agriculture, with which he intends to forge a farming partnership.


“I came with the knowledge to share with the locals here on how to use greenhouse technology. I use anti-virus plastic covers with small holes to protect crops from the rain and cold weather. Insects cannot enter into the plastic because it covers the ground that also keeps water and fertilisers in the soil clean. The plastic cover will also keep weeds away from the crops,” he explained.


Savir said it is important to invest money in simple and cheap machinery instead of heavy ones.

“This system is modern, easy, smaller and has simpler tools. It saves water and fertiliser. If you have insect problems in the soil, it is best – 100 percent – controlled because it has an anti-virus system,” he said.


Construction of the greenhouses is set to begin in October. He would import all construction materials from South Africa. He said he would also use drip irrigation on 10 hectares.


Savir also plans to instal sprinkler irrigation systems to distribute water as uniformly as possible. He said the soil at the farm is sandy, hence he would need a lot of water and fertiliser for his produce using pivot centres.


Savir said one hectare of tomatoes gives him 300 tonnes in Israel.

“I believe it will give me the same tonnage in Namibia. I wish to produce 100s of tonnes per year of yield. We plan to make a nursery with anti-virus nets for seedlings this month and then store them. The lifespan of varieties is two to three weeks and it doesn’t need refrigeration. If we want to develop agriculture, we need to provide small-scale farmers with greenhouses,” he said.


The farm has four water pumps from the Zambezi River pumping 1 000 cubic metres of water per hour.


The Katima Mulilo Town Council owns the farm, which has 350 hectares of arable land. Savir has a 10-year lease.

New Era

Namibia bans large-scale jatropha plantations

by Chamwe Kaira

Namibia has banned large scale jatropha-based biofuel projects in its north east until a study on its impact is undertaken, according to the country’s communications ministry.

The southern African nation’s Cabinet recommended a halt to jatropha in the Kavango and Caprivi regions “due to its negative impact on food security, land tenure, and loss of access to communal land; climate change implications; yield rates; and low financial viability,” the ministry said today in an e-mailed statement.

The Namibian government’s study will “determine the suitability of jatropha plant and other fuel plants” in the regions, the ministry said. Plantations of up to 400,000 hectares have been proposed by some investors, the statement said, exceeding the government’s plan of having 63,000 hectares under cultivation by 2013.

Seed harvested from jatropha trees yields oil that can be used in the manufacture of biodiesel.

Bloomberg

Namibia threatens to reclaim non-productive resettlement farms

by Irene !Hoaës

The Namibian Ministry of Lands and Resettlement has given three months to resettlement beneficiaries who lease their farming units to stop the practice or face the consequences.

“We want to take action. It is getting serious now. The law is clear, people should know,” warned the Director of Resettlement, Alfred Sikopo.

Sikopo said land would be withdrawn from those who make themselves guilty of the offence. The land would thereafter be re-advertised so that it is given to people who would use it productively.

Any beneficiary who is subleasing a farm or farming unit, is contravening the Agricultural (Commercial) Land Reform Act No 6 of 1995 and the Resettlement Policy of 2001 as well as the Conditions of the Lease Agreement.

“We don’t care with those who lease but with the land beneficiaries. They brought in these people and should get rid of them,” he said.

Sikopo revealed that about 30 to 40 percent of the resettlement farms are being subleased, as per a Resettlement Audit carried out two to three years ago. The practice is rife all over the country and is not unique to a specific region.

Sikopo said the cause for subleasing is the fact that there were no selection criteria when units were allocated but broad qualifying criteria, resulting in ‘wrong’ people getting land and being resettled.

“Apart from a qualifying criteria, you need a selection criteria. Many people might just need land for residential purposes and not necessarily agricultural land,” the director added.

According to Sikopo, a new selection criteria has just been approved and would come into effect soon.

The new selection criteria would make use of a scoring system, whereby criteria such as being a female, residing in a communal area versus somebody who resides in an urban area, being literate, age lower than 75 would score more points.

“Farming is a business, hence a literate person will be at an advantage as he/she will need to understand financial management, understand rangeland management etc,” Sikopo added.

The ministry held a workshop a week ago, which looked at the resettlement beneficiary criteria.
The aim of the workshop was to guide the resettlement process and ensure that only suitable candidates are selected for resettlement farming units.

Broad qualifying criteria stipulates that the following could get land:

• People who have neither land nor income nor livestock;
• People who have neither land nor income, but have livestock;
• People who have income or are cattle owners, who need land to settle on with their families, or to graze their livestock, could benefit from the resettlement programme.

Some critics are of the opinion that one of reasons people sublease is the fact that farmers do not receive post-settlement support or any other support that would enable them to productively farm.

Some farmers do not even have the means to buy diesel for their water engines, while resettlement beneficiaries do not even own livestock, hence subleasing could be the only option for the farmers.

The reason for land redistribution after independence was to redress past imbalances in the distribution of economic resources particularly land, to give some sections of the population an opportunity to produce their own food with a view towards self-sufficiency, to bring smallholder farmers into the mainstream of the Namibian economy by producing for the market, to create employment through full time farming, to alleviate human and livestock pressure in communal areas, to offer an opportunity to citizens to reintegrate into society after many years of displacement by the colonialisation process, war of liberation and circumstances.

In a recent change with regard to the selection criteria, the ministry would only advertise 30 percent of a farm bought by government for resettlement purposes, while 70 percent would be reserved for regional inhabitants.

According to the Minister of Lands and Resettlement, Alpheus !Naruseb, this is a policy directive necessitated by government’s desire to equitably spread land to people who need it the most.

New Era

Namibian farmers worry as rain becomes more unpredictable

Namibia: When every drop counts

The Omusati Region of northern Namibia is on the margins of what any farmer would consider arable land, with temperatures routinely hitting 40 degrees Celsius or more and rainfall seldom exceeding a pitiful 270 millimeters per year. To make matters worse 83 per cent of the little rain that does fall evaporates as soon as it hits the ground.

The people living here have no alternative to subsistence farming. Skills and opportunities are scarce, so whoever doesn’t leave scrapes a living herding goats or planting crops such as millet. In a report to the United Framework Convention on Climate Change, the government of Namibia has predicted global warming will cause a temperature rise of between 2 to 6 degrees Celsius in Namibia, while annual rainfall could diminish up to a further staggering 200mm.

In a country where 70 per cent of the population practices some form of agriculture this is a problem.

Hifekepunye, who like many of her generation doesn’t know her age, has 14 mouths to feed in her homestead. But now, at the beginning of the rainy season, her land still lies barren, the dust so thick you can taste it in the air.

In mid-November the rains that normally fall from October to May were already more than a month late. All over the region farmers tell the same story: the growing season is getting shorter and shorter and the rains more and more unpredictable, putting stress on animals and people alike.

An alien feature

Even for simple things like drinking and cooking water the women have to walk for hours to the nearest water point. "As a little girl, every day my sisters and I had to walk several kilometres, carrying heavy buckets of water for the household. The soil was so hot it would burn the underside of our feet," Hifekepunye recalls.

She tells the story sitting in front of a large plastic rainwater-harvesting tank. It seems incongruous in the traditional kraal, which mostly consists of clay huts, mixed with a few brick buildings with iron corrugated roofs. Alien as it looks, the tank has dramatically changed life in the rural community.

"Harvesting the water right here in the village has made my life as a woman much easier," Hifekepunye says. "I don’t have to travel long distances anymore."

As an experiment to help families adapt to ever drier conditions, the Country Pilot Partnership (CPP), supported by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Global Environment Facility (GEF), distributed 70 water tanks ranging from 2,500 to 5,000 litres to households, schools and hospitals.

Hifekepunye’s homestead received the water tank for free but had to finance a cement base and gutters linking it with the roofs out of their own pocket.

She thinks it’s a fair deal. "The advantage is significant, especially during the rainy season when the authorities close the tap at the water supply point two kilometers away as a cost-saving measure. Because of this tank we have clean drinking water right here."

Travelling miles for water




No such luck for 16-year-old Maria Eelu from the Omulai settlement. This morning she has travelled several kilometres to the Calueque canal to fetch water.




She filled 19 25-litre drums with water. Now she is supervising a group of small children as they lift the drums onto a donkey cart, careful not to spill a drop. "This is about a two-day supply for several households," Maria explains. "Our village is three kilometres away and doesn’t have running water." The donkeys patiently gaze into the mud at their feet waiting for the slow journey home.




The Calueque canal, which diverts water from the Calueque dam in nearby Angola, is a mere two metres wide but is one of the main water supplies for an area where a million people – half of Namibia’s population – live.




For famers Calueque is of major importance. Although banned by Namwater, Namibia’s only water company, which maintains the canal, the farmers covertly use the canal to irrigate their crops when there is not enough rain.

Drip lines




Paulus Amutenya is one of the farmers that uses the canal and a nearby lake, also fed from downpour from Angola, to irrigate his crops. Unlike the traditional method of flood furrow irrigation, where farmers flow water down small trenches running through their crops, he now uses drip lines supplied by the CPP programme to cultivate his crops.




"Without rainfall we have to irrigate more," he says. "With the drip lines that the project gave us we can efficiently distribute the scarce water when and where we need it."




The adaptation measures that the CPP put in place are hardly high-tech or unique, concedes programme manager Andreas Shilomboleni, but they work and they are cheap.




"Through the climate change adaptation programme we have introduced simple and cheap methods such as irrigation lines, water pumps, drought resistant livestock and plant breeds, or basic water harvesting technology," he says.




A few kilometres down the road, deep in the Mopane woodlands of the border area, Andreas lifts a water pump from the back of his Landcruiser. Immanuel Hambiya’s face breaks into a smile.




"We need the pump to bring water from the nearby lake," says the subsistence farmer who grows green peppers, cabbage, sweet corn and many other fruits and vegetables on his 2.5 hectare plot.




"These years the rains come late and are not enough," explains Hambiya. "So the water level in the lake drops and we have to pump it from further and further, or migrate to where the water is, or simply plant less crops."




Before he had a pump and drip lines Hambiya also relied on traditional flood furrow irrigation, one of the oldest methods of irrigation. "It’s a method that is hard to control," he explains. "If there is a lot of water at once, the crops will drown and become vulnerable to pests and fungi. It was also a very wasteful and labourious way of watering the plants. With the drip lines we are much more efficient."




According to Hambiya, after introducing the water-saving irrigation method he saw his yield increase by 10 per cent, while using much less of the valuable water.




As water becomes an even scarcer commodity in arid Namibia, small but vital efficiency gains like these can make difference between survival and starvation.




Servaas van den Bosch is a Panos Climate Change Media Partnership fellow.




Source: Panos






http://www.worldandmedia.com/climate-change/namibia-when-every-drop-counts-012270.html

Namibia president frustrated by slow pace of land reform

by Felix Njini

Namibian President Hifikepunye Pohamba has publicly expressed frustration at the slow pace of the country's land redistribution programme, a process which he urged government to swiftly address.

Pohamba told the country's first cabinet session in 2011 that the largely discredited willing buyer willing seller principle had been a failure and implored the Ministry of Lands and Resettlement to speedily finalise the Consolidated Draft Land Bill and the implementation of small scale farming projects.

The slow pace of the land reform programme should not be tolerated, Pohamba warned in what appears to the first warning shots of government intending to take rapid steps to finalise the skewed land ownership patterns in the country, which came about because of the colonial administration.

'Despite ongoing efforts by the government to redistribute land through the willing-buyer willing-seller policy, land reform remains a serious challenge. This requires urgent action and I am pleased that the ministry of lands and resettlement will soon finalise the consolidated draft land Bill and the implementation of small scale farming projects,' Pohamba told cabinet.

He also suggested that government strengthens and expands its post settlement support to resettled farmers.

In a wide ranging speech which slammed corruption and civil service ineptitude, Pohamba urged cabinet ministers to adopt a no-nonsense approach to service delivery. To strengthen its monitoring roles, the government has brought back quarterly progress reports, a programme which Pohamba said has not been consistently implemented.

But it was the President's stinging rebuke to ministers and the civil service to cut on foreign trips and size of their delegations when travelling that is likely to gain succor with an impatient and frustrated public.

Pohamba himself has taken the lead in cutting down on the number of his supporting staff accompanying him on foreign and local trips, he said.

'All ministers and permanent secretaries are directed to avoid unnecessary local and foreign travels.

When official missions are undertaken, the number of officials accompanying senior officials must be kept to a minimum of only essential staff. I have undertaken to do the same.' Pohamba said.

The President urged action on raising economic growth levels to around 7 percent and said authorities must mercilessly slap down corruption.

'The snake of corruption must be hit very hard on the head,' Pohamba said.

He also strongly urged authorities to deal decisively with crime and limit the number of firearms circulating in the public domain.

'I believe that it is necessary for government to introduce mechanisms to limit the ease with which firearms can be acquired in Namibia and to ensure that firearms do not end up in the hands of criminals.'

Southern Times

Namibia: People want land as a home, not so much for farming

by Brigitte Weidlich

Many resettlement beneficiaries regard access to State land as a possibility to have a 'permanent and secure home' rather than engaging in farming to earn an income, a new report on land reform in Namibia has revealed.

"Many poor [resettlement] beneficiaries do not necessarily want a piece of land large enough for farming commercially. The research undertaken in Hardap and Omaheke Regions revealed that the main priority of a great many beneficiaries was to obtain access to land on which to establish a secure home of their own," the report said.

"The absence of alternative resettlement models left them with no option other than to apply for a small-scale farm, and if successful, to obtain access to a piece of land exceeding 1 000 hectares, which they never had any intention of farming except on a household subsistence level."

The 180-page report, titled 'Livelihoods after land reform', is the result of three years of research done by the Legal Assistance Centre (LAC), the University of the Western Cape in South Africa and the University of Sussex in Britain. It was recently completed but the LAC is still awaiting response from the Lands Ministry to launch it officially.

Many resettlement farms were like a 'welfare project' to give people homes, like on Skoonheid Farm, where large groups of San people were given a place to live. Everything should be done to prevent such farms from turning into squatter camps. Rather, large community gardens could be kept there and market access provided for them to sell their produce in nearby towns, the experts recommended.

Farming units on farms bought by Government for resettlement and partitioned off by the Lands Ministry were too small, the report stated.

"Current farming unit sizes on resettlement farms, particularly in areas where cattle farming is the predominant economic activity, may not enable beneficiaries to become independent small-scale commercial farmers, let alone accumulate sufficient assets to become medium- or large-scale commercial farmers," the authors noted. Average sizes for resettled beneficiaries are around 1 000 and 1 200 ha in areas with better rainfall and 3 000 ha in southern Namibia.

The maximum number of cattle that can be kept on a 1 000-ha unit is 68 animals.

"Even if units of 1 500 ha were allowed, the maximum number of cattle would be 100 or two-thirds of the minimum 150 large livestock units (LSU) required to be considered for an affirmative action loan scheme (AALS) loan. Successful land reform beneficiaries therefore face a ceiling on their progress," the report stated.

A resettlement farming unit of 1 000 ha would only yield annual income of about N$37 500, while a 3 000-hectare unit would only bring in N$60 480 per year.

Apart from these concerns, the question not yet answered is whether the current small-scale commercial farming model can indeed address the needs and aspirations of asset-poor people as the national resettlement policy proposes to do.

"The short answer must be that it does not. The research confirmed a finding of the Permanent Technical Team on Land Reform (PTT) in 2004 that in many instances, the size of the land allocated did not match with the beneficiaries' productive assets, particularly livestock numbers."

The report recommended that the current minimum farm unit sizes should be reviewed on the basis of available economic and financial data to possibly increasing them.

"Failing to do so may result in more beneficiaries relying on the financial support of the Lands Ministry, particularly with regard to infrastructure development and maintenance."

The experts further concluded that available evidence suggests that resettlement beneficiaries with very few assets "are unlikely to make a financial success of their land allocations".

"They will either get poorer and/or remain dependent on the Lands Ministry. A large number of asset-poor people are in need of both access to land and tenure security, not necessarily for the purpose of farming commercially."

The report recommended that the needs of people with few assets, such as farmworkers, be clearly identified, and that appropriate resettlement models should be developed to meet the needs of those who do not want to farm commercially.

The Namibian

Namibian farmland under-utilized

Although Namibia has only about one percent of arable land, the line ministry says its agricultural potential is currently under-utilised.

The Ministry of Agriculture, Water and Forestry wants to put 30 000 to 37 000 hectares of land under irrigation.

Of the 30 000 ha, only about 10 000 ha are currently under irrigation, said the Deputy Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Agriculture, Water and Forestry, Anna Shiwedha.

“Projects currently under irrigation are not fully utilised, especially in the Kavango Region. We have a 1 000-hectare project, but only 500-600 ha are utilised. There is also land in Caprivi which has not yet been utilised. We are looking at that land, but we have to consult with traditional authorities,” Shiwedha said.

She said there is serious need for negotiations with the traditional authorities, as people who are currently living on that land have to be moved.

“We want to call in the people and say there is land, we have the water, you can make business here. There is still room for expansion, we have land in the country, especially along the rivers,” Shiwedha said in an attempt to woo potential investors to the upcoming agricultural investment conference.

The conference’s objective is to bring together farmers, traders in agricultural products, policymakers, manufacturers of technology and agricultural inputs and financing agencies, with a view to attract investment in the sector.

The investment conference will take place from September 15 to 17 in the capital.

According to Shiwedha, Government is the biggest investor in agriculture and has been, for the past five years on a drive to increase agricultural production.

It is believed that the agricultural sector is not performing at the pace at which it did before. There are indications that tourism has surpassed agriculture with regard to GDP contribution during recent years.

However, the deputy permanent secretary is adamant that agriculture has not declined, but is still on the same level, as it is still the biggest employer in the country. A lot of farmers have begun to diversify their farming activities by going into tourism activities, such as lodges and hunting farms.

“The private sector is there, but they are diversifying just because apparently agriculture is not profitable,” she noted.

Shiwedha said there is definitely an opportunity with regard to agricultural business, noting that the conference will focus on  the whole agricultural production chain.

The 30 000 hectares do not include under-utilised virgin land in communal areas. However, the virgin land seems to be more suitable for other farming types and not necessarily irrigation.

New Era

Jatropha goes from buzz to bust in Namibia

If it were up to Floris Smith, he would yank out all 8,600 jatropha trees on Shadi Kongoro irrigation scheme.

"We started with 14,000 trees in 2005," he said. "Now almost half are eaten by termites and we never sold one seed."

Smith, manager of the scheme in the Kavango region of Namibia, is not alone in his aversion to jatropha seed, which contains an oil used to make biofuel.

Five years ago, foreign speculators arrived in the impoverished area and talked farmers into adopting the 'dream crop.' Jatropha would be an easy-to-grow money maker with excellent returns from a booming biodiesel market. With climate change high on the agenda and fuel prices soaring, the deal seemed a no-brainer for local businessmen.

But oil prices have since fallen, drying up demand for jatropha. The plant has proved less productive in Namibia than hoped, and more vulnerable to frost and damage from wildlife than advertised. Now many are turning away from the former wonder crop.

"People have bright ideas, but they fool the community and farmers," said Terence Spyron, a commercial farmer in Kavango.

Spyron and his associates in Namibia Bio-Energy Investments (NBI) jumped on the jatropha bandwagon and partnered with Icecap, a UK company that that invested 6 million Namibian dollars ($787,000) in a jatropha project. The plan was to donate trees to small-scale farmers in the area for intercropping with their regular pearl millet staple crop. The profits from jatropha sales would then be shared.

A year ago Spyron was still excited about the one million jatropha seedlings, ready for planting, waiting under shade netting at his Shankara farm, on the banks of the Okavango River near the Angolan border. But as oil prices contracted, Icecap pulled out of the consortium. Only 70,000 trees were eventually planted. Spyron is now desperately trying to keep alive another 300,000 seedings, but the bulk of the stock - 600,000 trees - has died, and 156 workers hired for the scheme have been retrenched.

Similarly, on Shadi Kongoro, Smith is left with 2 million useless jatropha seeds after a would-be South African partner in producing biodiesel pulled out of the deal.

"This jatropha tree is a waste of valuable hectares that could be used for much-needed food production," he fumed. Arid Namibia imports roughly 60 percent of its food.

Small farmers are similarly disappointed that the big plans for jatropha in the area have largely collapsed.

"Five hundred families filled out applications to be involved in the project," recalled Ignatius Shixwameni, an NBI investor and a member of Namibia's parliament. "Trust was built between the investors, traditional authorities and the people. That trust is now gone."

A recent report by Action Aid damns the jatropha hype for creating hunger among developing world farmers. About 1.1 million hectares in five African countries are now used for industrial biofuel production, the report said, but crops like jatropha have pushed out other land uses, including food production, and have brought in far less in the way of income than anticipated.

Still, with oil prices recovering to $80 a barrel recently, foreign investors again are starting to eye several hundred thousand hectares in northern Namibia for growing biofuel crops, mainly jatropha.

Critics question the business rationale behind the proposed ventures, and the benefits for local communities.

"No one really has commercial figures for jatropha," said Francois Waal, whose employer, Namibia Agriculture and Renewables, recently backed out of a 100,000-hectare jatropha development in Namibia's Caprivi region. "We even went to India where jatropha apparently was big business, to get some answers. Wherever we looked, we didn't find any viable projects," Waal said.

Jatropha has been marketed as a tree that thrives in poor soil and creates mass-employment. However, research suggests yields are minimal, even on fertile soils, Namibian experts say. The plant is also not as hardy as advertised, Namibian growers complain.

"The trees were sold as immune to frost and unattractive for wildlife, but that's simply not true," said Christoff Brock, head of the Namibian Agronomic Board. "Antelopes eat the leaves, mice eat the seeds and the lightest frost has a profound effect on the tree."

In 2006 the board, excited about jatropha prospects, put out an ambitious 'Biodiesel Roadmap' for the country. The report is now gathering dust.

"It turns out jatropha is not economically viable," Brock said. "Even working at minimum wage, just getting the seeds of the trees is too expensive."

Officials in the Southern African country have grown wary of investors that promise instant riches for the local population, he said.

Not only has jatropha not brought the promised returns for small farmers but "a big concern was that jatropha would replace mahangu (pearl millet) growing, and how would that impact on food security?" Brock said.

Reuters

Namibian biofuel venture secures land for jatropha plantation

by Jen Balboa

LL Biofuels Namibia has gotten hold of 300,000 hectares of land from Caprivi chiefs of the southern African country for the planting of jatropha for biodiesel production, Namibia’s New Era newspaper reported.

The multibillion dollar venture involves a 20-year lease agreement for the Katima farm between LL Biofuels and the farm’s co-owners, the Caprivi Regional Council and the Namibia Development Corporation.

Lev Leviev, a Bukharian-Israeli billionaire businessman, has already poured 20 million Namibian dollars ($2.6 million) into the project’s ongoing experimental phase. The project can attract billions of dollars of funding once Israeli investors find the yield sufficient.

So far, the venture has reportedly planted 400 different jatropha varieties on 15 hectares of the 400-hectare Katima farm. This phase will determine which of the selected pilot crop varieties has a higher diesel yield and is suitable for the Caprivi terrain.

The target is to find the best jatropha tree varieties that yield 3 metric tons to 8 metric tons of diesel annually, said Alon Vered, an agronomist and project manager for LL Biofuels.

The company will only plant jatropha at 20,000 hectares at a time since the 300,000 hectares secured is excessive for the project. LL Biofuels will use a press machine to squeeze out the biodiesel from the jatropha seed, explained Mr. Vered.

The drought-resistant jatropha will be able to produce 1 million barrels of biofuel at 20,000 hectares and 5 million barrels for every 100,000 hectares. Each 200-liter barrel of jatropha biofuel may cost about $75, supposedly cheaper than fossil diesel, Mr. Vered estimated.

LL Biofuels will produce the first barrels next year once negotiations with the government push through. The company also plans to tie up with multinational oil companies once production begins to develop more market opportunities.

The company intends to use a part of the anticipated billion-dollar investment to construct a high-tech chemical plant that will feature a huge seed press and silos for the storage of the jatropha seeds. After the extraction of the biofuel, the seed residue will be converted into an organic fertilizer for the jatropha plant.

LL Biofuels aims to become the biggest biofuel producer in Africa, especially for biodiesel. The fuel produced will be used in Namibia, while some will be exported.

Ecoseed

Floods destroy crops in southern Africa

by Sam Banda

Zambia and Namibia have been hit by floods following heavy rains which reportedly destroyed crops among others. The reports come barely a few days after another southern African country Malawi was hit by floods in the southern region which affected about 3,400 families.

Media reports say that Namibia has declared a state of emergency in flood-hit areas as waterways burst their banks in the narrow Caprivi Strip between Zambia and Botswana. About 400,000 people are said to have been affected on both sides of Namibia's border with Angola.

Data from Namibia's Hydrological Service is said to have showed river levels along the Kavango River at their highest since 1963. The official death toll in Namibia is 92 but aid workers said it would almost certainly be much higher.

The reports further said that the floods are the worst in 40 years for the two countries according to disaster officials. A Reuters report said Zambia has put its air force on standby to airlift people to safety.

"We've heard some incredible stories," Matthew Cochrane, a spokesman for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) said.

Cochrane further said that communities have been separated by rising water. "Crocodile attacks, hippo attacks, snake bites. These are some of the risks people face. Then there's the more mundane risks: malarial and diarrhea diseases, and just the lack of food," he said.

In Zambia things have also got out of hand with water levels in some districts higher than they had been since 1969. A road linking the rich copper nation to Zimbabwe is said to have been damaged and that the country’s Southern Province is the worst hit, with more than 20,000 households affected and 5,000 houses destroyed.

Zambia’s National Coordinator of Disaster Management has since asked people leaving n low land to move to higher lands. In January, rains in Malawi and Zambia are said to have caused flooding in Mozambique that killed 45 people and left 285,000 homeless.

The African continent is currently experiencing the rainy season which are bringing about floods. This has also threatened to increase waterborne diseases like cholera.

Africa News

Land reform farm prices too low, says Namibian farmers' union

by Wezi Tjaronda

Namibia Agriculture Union’s land committee has asked the Government to pay market-related prices when buying land for the land reform process.

The land committee met recently to analyse the land reform process and reflect on the union’s involvement. The committee noted the current high land prices are an indication that agricultural land is on demand.

Earlier, Agribank had expressed concern over the price of farmland, which the bank said had increased resulting in the scarcity of farmland being offered for sale to prospective commercial farmers.

The high price of farmland on the market resulted in a decline in the total loans granted to Affirmative Action Loan Scheme (AALS) farmers in 2008. Of the N$102.8 million that was loaned to mostly AALS farmers from April to December last year, N$21.8 million was loaned out for the purchase of farmland, which is a decrease from N$22.5 million that the bank loaned out over the same purpose in 2007.

NAU Executive Director, Sakkie Coetzee, said that the current model, where land is offered to the Government and the Government determines the price, did not leave much land on the supply side.

“The demand is great and the land is not necessarily there, so the prices are going up,” he said.

Coetzee said since the willing buyer-willing seller plan was based on the free market system, more land is now going on auction where landowners get market-related prices compared to what the Government is willing to pay. He added that the current mechanism scared off landowners willing to offer the Government land because even when they are unhappy with the Government’s offer, they are not allowed to withdraw the offer.

The current land prices on auction range between N$800 and N$1 600 per hectare, according to farmland that will be auctioned in May. Land in the Windhoek and Dordabis area can cost up to N$2 000 per hectare, while in the south it goes for up to N$650 per hectare.

Depending on where the land is located, an auctioneer said that people were willing to pay between N$5 million and N$6 million for land. This is two times the amount the buyers were paying for land two years ago. He also said if the Government could decide to pay market-related prices for land, it would buy more land for the land reform programme.

‘If a farmer offers land for N$1 200 per hectare, the Government has the first option to buy and they must buy at that price and not on a predetermined price,’ the auctioneer said, adding that many farmers were willing to sell but the Government was not willing to pay.

According to Coetzee, NAU supports the willing buyer-willing seller plan because investment trust in Africa is often measured in the success of the land reform programmes.

“The willing buyer-willing seller policy in the agricultural sector is one of the instruments which motivates investors to be willing to also invest in other sectors of the economy,” he said.

However, he advised that the land reform process should not only focus on land redistribution but also concentrate on ensuring sustainable production, alleviation of poverty, employment creation and guaranteed food security.

Other proposals made by the committee include categorising farms, implementing the Negotiated Land Reform Forum and conducting a study on what market related land prices should be.

Categorising the land would assist landowners and the Government with the categorising of farms based on ownership, economic activities, size and presence on the land and with whom the Government can negotiate to obtain farms for the land reform process.

The committee said it wants the Negotiated Land Reform Forum to be implemented this year and that other role players of the forum should accept the forum.

The committee proposed an investigation into what market-related prices for agricultural land should be and other mechanisms, which can be employed to create trust, for agricultural landowners to offer their farms as possible substitutes for the current mechanisms.

Currently, about 1 300 farms with a total surface of approximately 6 million ha are already transferred through the various programmes to previously disadvantaged farmers. Of this, the Agribank clients are the biggest group with about 755 farms, the resettlement programme with 275 farms and 271 farms, which were obtained by previously disadvantaged farmers through other means.

NAU is currently actively involved in the training of emerging farmers in the finer art of commercial farming practices by means of training programmes and a mentorship scheme, which is offered by the Emerging Commercial Farmers Support Programme.

New Era