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Namibia agriculture faces bleak harvest in 2015

Xinhua, February 11, 2015 Adjust font size:

With less than two months to go before the end of the rainy season, Namibia has not had any meaningful rains this year.

This prompted the Agronomic Producers Association (APA) to call for an urgent meeting with government and other stakeholders to discuss the situation.

So far, Namibia has harvested only 30,000 tones of maize, which about 50 percent of last season's 70,328 tones.

the Agricultural Input and Household Food Security Report released by the National Early Warning and Food Information System (NEWFIU) early last year in January also warned about weakened food security as a result of erratic rainfall.

Addressing local media last week after the meeting with maize producers, APA chairperson Gernot Eggert said they have lost hope and that the outlook was bleak.

"In all my years as maize producer I have never seen such strange weather patterns as this year. Towards the end of last year, some good downpours in certain areas got the spirit of producers in the maize triangle up and most of them started planting in all earnest, hopeful of a good rainy season," Eggert said.

The maize triangle is the area between Otavi, Tsumeb and Grootfontein about 300 km north from capital Windhoek.

"For the greater part of the maize triangle, there is just no hope left. Their maize, now in seed and desperately in need of rain, is standing knee-high whereas it should have been more than 1.5 meters by now. It is a sad sight," Eggert said.

He also said the Minister of Agriculture, Water and Forestry John Mutorwa would be informed about the dire situation.

Namibia had one of the worst drought years in 2013 which saw President Hifikepunye Pohamba declaring the situation a state of emergency in May.

Pohamba admitted then that the "climate change is here to stay and humanity must find ways and means of mitigating its effects".

President Pohamba appealed for international support in the sum of 330.7 million Namibian dollars (26 million U.S. dollars) to deal with the crisis.

Government pledged 200 million Namibian dollars in drought relief, while UNICEF embarked on raising 70.4 million Namibian dollars for 109,000 children aged under five who faced the risk of severe malnutrition.

Algeria donated 10 million Namibian dollars in food aid and South Africa pledged 100 million Namibian dollars. Endit