Namibian’s somewhat 800 Conservation Agricultural (CA) practitioners took notice with surprise of an advertisement by the International Food Organisation (FAO) in last week’s Farmers Forum for the recruitment of a national consultant to collate, synthesise and document past, ongoing and planned CA, Good Agricultural Practises (GAP) and Resource-Conserving Technology (RCT) projects and programmes in Namibia.
This is being done with a view to draw lessons learned on principles, concepts and practises that the farmers adopted and employ for optimum production and increased agricultural productivity.
What surprised CA farmers is that the assignment comes exactly ten years after CA was introduced in Namibia in which time CA methods have produced record-breaking harvest of maize and mahangu.
FAO representative to Namibia, Babagana Ahmed, told Farmers Forum that the outcome of the assignment is to ensure that project implementation builds on existing and effective CA concepts and practises with clear and updated information on what has worked, and what barriers and gaps were experienced and what might have limited effective uptake of these climate-smart practises.
The answers seem to be contained in Understanding Farmers’ Adoption of Conservation Agriculture in Northern Namibia, a summary of the most comprehensive study ever done, which interviewed subsistence farmers and other stakeholders on the adoption of Conservation Agriculture (CA) in the North Central Regions.
The study is contained in the Master Thesis in Agro-ecology of Namibian Fabian von Hase at the Swedish University of Agriculture (June 2013). His study concludes that farmers want to adopt CA in their fields but there is a lack of tractors for ripping (tilling) the soil that is preventing them from doing so. Non-governmental Organisations (NGOs) and the government have to address this by providing more information and support to existing and prospective private tractor owners. “Rain fed subsistence agriculture in Central Northern Namibia has been unable to feed the population due to low yields. These are a result of a number of factors, chief among which is the use of out dated farming methods using disc harrows or mould board ploughs1. These techniques pulverise and compact the soil, leaving crops exposed to wind erosion, floods and droughts and lead to dismal mahangu (Pearl Millet) yields of 230 kg/ha2. (FAO (2009) Special Report FAO/WFP Crop, Livestock and Food
Security Assessment Mission to Namibia).
Von Hase says a solution to this problem is urgently needed, especially as 300 000 Namibians received food relief from government during the drought of 2013 and government just rolled out another drought relief programme for 2015.
Von Hase points out that Specific Conservation Tillage (NSCT) is such a solution. It is considered to be a CA technique and it boosts average mahangu yields to 1670 kg/ha. NSCT relies on a simple set of techniques that have been developed together with communal mahangu (pearl millet) farmers in the North. Central to the method is the use of rippers instead of disc harrows or mould board ploughs. The method has been developed since 2005 by the CONTILL project, a collaboration between the Namibian National Farmers Union (NNFU), Namibia Agronomic Board (NAB), Ministry of Agriculture, Water and Forestry (MAWF), Namibia Resource Consultants (NRC) and the Golden Valley Agriculture Research Trust (GART) and funded by Sida. NSCT is now being promoted through the Namibia Conservation Agriculture (NCAP) project implemented by CLUSA and funded by the USAID. It relies on ripping the soil instead of old tilling methods.
In 2012, only 800 farmers were doing CA. Therefore, there is a dire need to upscale the adoption of CA across Northern Namibia where around 230 000 subsistence farming households derive their income from subsistence farming. This is especially important due to the fact that with CA, farmers can avoid the effects of droughts such as the one in 2013 and the current drought, currently impacting the North. In order to upscale CA, however, it is necessary for NGOs and the MAWF to understand what motivates farmers to try CA, how they take the decision and what helps and hinders this process. “It is socially and culturally acceptable to do CA. Farmers found it easy to learn about CA and to implement it and they felt empowered by its results. As a whole, farmers had
strong intentions to adopt CA. Respondents also said that information on the method was easily obtained from CA projects and farmer meetings, the radio or established CA farmers. Farmers often decided to try CA immediately upon hearing about its better yields, but they adopted it in increments to limit their risks if the method should fail. Failure of CA was however not reported by farmers. Instead, their expectations of yields were generally exceeded. They also found no problems with implementing CA. Resultantly, they were very happy with the method and all wanted to continue or even expand the area under CA. Overall, farmers easily made the decision to adopt CA and were content with the method once they had done so.
A large market for provision of ripping services by private tractor owners has been established to exist. Von Hase concludes that inefficiencies in the MAWF structure inhibit it from delivering ripping services. “Thefore, CA will need to be promoted by NGOs and the private sector. This is especially urgent in the provision of ripping services to farmers already doing CA and those that want to adopt it. Judging by its current performance, government is unlikely to meet the ripping needs of the large number of farmers across the North. Therefore, the private sector needs to be encouraged to fill the gap. In order to motivate existing and prospective tractor owners to invest in ripping implements and provide services to CA farmers the following will need to be done. Government should provide tractor owners with information on business opportunities and put them in contact with farmers.
The government needs to clarify its strategy of land preparation provision to farmers. At the moment it is promising land preparation for farmers at below market prices (when ripped by government tractor) and subsidised prices (by private tractor). Neither the land preparation by government tractor nor the subsidy for private tractor owners is effective; this is leading to discouragement of the private sector and farmers not receiving ripping services. Therefore, it is recommended that government provide the ripping services it is promising (or stop promising them) as well as encourage the private sector through improving the subsidy system and avoiding competition with it through unrealistic prices. Lastly, it is suggested that NGO’s and the MAWF offer continuous training to farmers on CA. This would enable farmers to establish and run farmer to farmer learning networks that would spread the NSCT method across the North,” he concludes.