Festive Feasts Highlight Food Dependence

DECEMBER 2025 BRINGS festive cheer to many Namibian homes.

Tables are filled with delicious meals, fresh produce and seasonal delicacies, creating an image of abundance and comfort.

Yet behind this festive display lies an uncomfortable truth. Nearly 90% of the food on those tables is not produced locally.

This reality should concern policymakers and households alike. Namibia’s festive feasts are largely sustained by imports, exposing the country to price shocks, supply disruptions and growing food insecurity.

Celebration masks vulnerability, but it does not erase it. Even as improved rains offer hope for better harvests in some regions, food access remains uneven.

Recent projections indicate that significant segments of the population are likely to face crisis-level food insecurity or worse into early 2026.
High food prices, driven in part by export pressures from supplier countries, continue to strain household budgets, particularly for low-income families.

Namibia’s food prices are shaped less by local production costs and more by regional supply dynamics. When exporting countries face shortages, currency volatility or policy changes, Namibian consumers feel the impact almost immediately.

Fresh data from the Namibian Agronomic Board (NAB) reveals the scale of this dependence. Namibia imported nearly all of its white maize and the vast majority of other grain staples in the 2023/24 marketing year, with local production supplying only about 20% of total grain purchases.

White maize, a key staple, was completely sourced from South Africa, while mahangu production met just a small fraction of domestic demand.
This underscores the depth of our reliance on external sources. South Africa supplies virtually all of Namibia’s white maize, rice and wheat, and more than 95% of its horticultural products.

While this arrangement has ensured short-term availability, it has locked the country into elevated prices and external shocks beyond its control.
Namibia is not short of land; it is short of water management at scale and the widespread adoption of crops suited to semi-arid environments.

With investment in irrigation, water harvesting, recycling and coastal desalination, combined with drought-resilient crops such as sorghum, millet, legumes and adapted maize varieties, Namibia can significantly expand local production.

Dryness need not be destiny. Policy choices, skills transfer and capital deployment matter more. This festive season, as imported abundance fills our shelves, Namibia must confront the risks of over-reliance.
– Elvis Mboya

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