Windhoek
“I am impressed with the overwhelming interest to adopt climate-smart farming methods and I would like to express my sincere thanks to the Ministry of Environment and Tourism for choosing to highlight Conservation Agriculture (CA) as a means of combating desertification and for creating food security, and to the farmers who travelled from far to celebrate the World Day to Combat Desertification and to share their knowledge and experiences with us.”
This was the message from Inomusa Nyati, Country Representative of National cooprative Business Association Cooperation League of the United States, which is supporting farmers to take up CA methods such as rip furrowing and hand-hoe basins through its two USAID funded projects the Namibia Conservation Agriculture Project (NCAP) and the Resilient Agriculture Interventions in Namibia (RAIN) project. “Farmers are experiencing the negative effects of depleted and unproductive soils equally, farmers have realised that all is not lost because with CA they are still able to gain maximum crop harvest and contribute to food security. CA farmers need continuous support in the form of trainings and access to implements, land preparation services and seed as they contribute to food security beyond their household needs by selling surplus to the government silos and the general public,” he noteS.
The Namibia-specific rip furrow CA method cracks open the increasingly problematic hard plow-pan, and creates ridges for in-field rain water harvesting, which guides water to the planting lines and enables water infiltration for deep plant root development under both drought and flood conditions. In the CA hand-hoe basin method, uniformly spaced planting holes (or planting basins) are opened through field residue in the otherwise undisturbed soil. The planting basins are organised in a line across the field’s main slope to maximise in-field water retention. CA is about practicing minimum soil disturbance instead of soil destructive tilling methods such as disc harrowing and moldboard plowing. Combined with simple planting techniques, the use of soil cover, manure and crop rotations, the CA methods improves yields and stabilizes fields against droughts, floods and high winds.
Namibia holds the Presidency of COP 11 under UNCCD from December 2013 to October 2015 and is signatory to the three Rio conventions: UNCCD, the Convention of Biological Diversity (CBD) and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The National Action Programme for the combating of desertification was approved by Cabinet and launched in October 2014. “I encourage the private sector, the civil society sector, MET and the MAWF to work together to form a strong platform to implement the National Action Programme and to meet the challenges of the farmers such as the shortage of CA land preparation services and seed. The contribution of the private sector is vital as we heard from the farmers’ presentations and as we saw in the field demonstrations. Baufi’s Agricultural Services is a Namibian company that is manufacturing and developing CA implements which are vital for farmers to be able to practice CA. Kongalend Financial Services is contributing enormously by its agri-business loan packages specially designed to support the wide uptake of CA. I also commend NCBA CLUSA, Creative Entrepreneurs Solutions (CES) and the Namibia National Farmers Union (NNFU) for its trainings and mentorship projects that so far has trained more than 12,000 farmers.
“It was very important and encouraging to see the strong support and dedication from the Deputy Minister and the Governor of the Oshikoto region to combat desertification. COP 12 is to be held in Turkey in October this year. As a country, we need to prepare to present what we have done to combat desertification and CA is a shining example.” says Shikongo.