By Deon Schlechter
WINDHOEK – A bumper harvest of 6,060 kg of mahangu per hectare was recorded last week at Vilho Nande’s farm in Oniipa constituency in the Oshikoto region. He is a lead farmer on the USAID CLUSA Namibia Conservation Agriculture Project (NCAP) and as such he is running a demonstration plot on his farm under CA – the ripping furrowing method – where he trains neighbours who are interested in learning and taking up CA methods.
Altogether the project aims to train 10,800 farmers in seven northern regions. NCAP is implemented in cooperation with local partners Creative Entrepreneurs Solutions and Namibia National Farmers Union.
In the Zambezi Region, yields of up to 4,100 kg of maize (Pannar 413 seed were used) per hectare and as much as 3,500 of cowpea per hectare at lead farmers’ demonstration plots where they practice the CA basin method.
Yield recordings in ripped furrowed conservation agriculture (CA) fields and in CA basin fields were done. In the basin method farmers use a hand-hoe to create planting holes 35 cm long and 15 cm deep. See detailed info about the method on: http://conservationagriculture.org
Both methods use soil cover and crop rotations with nitrogen fixing legumes such as cowpea. Velvet bean is an excellent green soil cover that is intercropped in the fields once the other crops are knee-high. Velvet beans not only suffocate weed by developing foliage covering the soil between planting lines, it also fixes nitrogen in the soil.
Vilho Nande says that from now on he will practice CA methods on his entire farm due to the high yields. His household food security has increased to the point where he is now able to market surplus.
For entrepreneurs there is a huge opportunity to become engaged in providing services to smallholders such as ripping furrowing land preparation services, creating seed outlets that are easily accessible, provide transportation of produce to the market, and to provide after-harvest services such as mechanised threshing. Smallholders who are increasing production gradually become semi-commercial farmers who are economically empowered to pay for services. The most urgent need is for land preparation services. The correct equipment is a medium sized 4×4 tractor fitted with a ripper furrower, or, if using draught power animals, to acquire a CA set that is fitted to a plough frame. Ripping furrowing can start after harvest thus giving service providers an income window of seven months. Early land preparation is vital as it give farmers the opportunity to plant at the on-set of rain. Late planting results in yield losses of 1% per day after the optimal planting window. Currently there are too few ripping furrowing service providers resulting in many farmers having to wait as long as until January for land preparation.
For further information call Andreas Tweendeni – NCAP Field Coordinator in Oshikoto region 081-2143398, and Richard Sihani – NCAP Field Coordinator in Zambezi region 081-6195865