‘Nam not promoting conservation agriculture’

NAMIBIA is struggling to promote and implement conservation agriculture, a recent study by the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) has concluded.

Conservation agriculture is an approach in managing agro-ecosystems for improved and sustained productivity, profit and food security, while preserving and enhancing the resource base and the environment.

It comprises three key principles: minimal soil disturbance, permanent organic soil cover and the diversification of crop species and crop rotation.

In their paper in August 2020 entitled: ‘Conservation Agriculture: Time to Reap the Benefits,’ IPPR said Namibia is stagnating on promoting and implementing conservation agriculture despite a number of policies relevant to it and a dedicated comprehensive conservation agricultural programme (CCAP) which ran from 2015 to 2019.

The paper was written by Dietrich Remmert, the institute’s research associate who has worked on a range of research projects since 2004.

IPPR said other documents relevant to conservation agriculture are Namibia’s fifth National Development Plan, Namibia’s Agriculture Policy of 2015 and the National Climate Change Strategy and Action Plan (2013-2020), but these documents provide little detail on its implementation and how the method is categorised and prioritised in respect to other agricultural activities.

The objectives of the CCAP is to increase awareness of conservation agriculture among farmers, staff and researchers, increasing farmers’ conservation agriculture skills and providing crucial input such as equipment and market access, among others.

The institute argues that the Ministry of Agriculture, Water and Land Reform has for some years been implementing the Dry-Land Crop Production Programme (DCPP) with various subsidised agricultural inputs and services to farmers including seeds, fertiliser, and tillage assistance through tractors, but it is unclear how the programme fits into the promotion and implementation of conservation agriculture by the government.

Remmert said the ministry in its correspondence did not clarify which of these approaches were receiving priority, but simply noted that programmes such as DCPP, green schemes, CCAP and the cereal and horticulture value chains, among others, speak to the goals set out in NDP5 and the Harambee Prosperity Plan, to boost agricultural input and improve food security.

However, the paper stated that it is evident that DCPP is a much larger and costlier initiative than CCAP and the former provided at least one benefit to around 44 000 farmers while less than 400 farmers were trained in conservation agriculture in 2017.

“This difference in the number of beneficiaries indicates that the ministry attaches more importance to dry-land crop production than conservation agriculture,” the paper stated.

IPPR continued that determining the extent of conservation agriculture adoption in Namibia is challenging as most available statistics do not detail the type of crop farming used and there are hardly any specific academic studies on it in the country.

The IPPR study also took issue with Namibia’s participation in conservation agriculture activities under the USAID-funded Southern African Regional Environmental Programme (Sarep).

According to Sarep, around 200 Namibia farmers received training on conservation agriculture as did citizens of Angola and Botswana, but the latter two countries seem to have had success with the implementation by recording high crop yields.

“It is unfortunate that the Sarep report does not provide any information on why Namibian farmers failed to reap benefits from conservation agriculture training,” said IPPR.

The research body was also not impressed by the results regarding the implementation of the Scaling-Up Community Resilience to Climate Variability and Climate Change in Northern Namibia (SCORE) project, which ran from 2015 to 2019.

According to IPPR, this project did not do much to help rural communities to take up conservation agriculture. The project was aimed at creating adaptive capacity and resilience production systems and livelihoods in seven northern regions.

In addition, the project sought to address previously identified barriers to adopting climate-smart practices such as lack of information.

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