Shadikongoro
The government-owned Shadi Green Scheme irrigation project at Shadikongoro village in Mukwe Constituency is suitable for planting barley, a crop used in manufacturing beer.
This is the conclusion after barley was successfully grown at the project for experimental purposes.
On the August 19, 2015 the Ministry of Agriculture, Water and Forestry – through its AgriBusDev company – signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Namibia Breweries Limited (NBL) for the production of barley at some of the country’s green scheme projects, including Shadi.
“Not so long ago the University of Namibia and Namibia Breweries entered into an agreement to look into growing barley, so we came together decided to experiment whether barley can be grown in Namibia, because all along this barley was imported from Europe and it is very costly,” Mutorwa told New Era on Tuesday during a tour at the project.
“We then selected a few places, at Mahenene (a government research centre outside Tsumeb), here at Shadi and other places just to test. Here at Shadikongoro it came out very clearly that it grows very well, on the basis of the experiments we conducted,” Mutorwa said.
“So here we are now. Mr Marais – with his people – is already working with the breweries and they are going to plant barley to be used to brew the beer,” Mutorwa added.
According to projects manager Daniel Marais the trial was cinducted at the project few years back, but this year the breweries asked them to plant more hectares. “I was asked to plant 120 hectares and I hope to harvest 600 to 700 tonnes in October,” Marais said.
Mutorwa was in Kavango East Region the whole of last week for an inspection visit, where he visited government green schemes and other projects under his ministry and was briefed on the progress and challenges the various projects face.