By Catherine Sasman
WINDHOEK
On a small area of 900 square metres, young volunteers and Polytechnic of Namibia students studying agriculture are growing a wide variety of fruits and vegetables.
“We grow everything here,” says Marianna Ntinda (23), group leader of the volunteers, as she walks through and points out the lush yields from the garden patch in a quiet corner of the Multi-Purpose Youth Centre in Katutura.
“We have lettuce, sweet potato, Swiss chard (a certain kind of spinach), different types of herbs, celery, parsley, cabbage, green and hybrid peppers, onions, sweet maize, and tomatoes.”
So impressive is the garden, goes the story, that Chinese President Hu Jintao who visited the project on his recent trip to the country, was stopped in his tracks by the garden’s flowery and healthy-looking cabbage produce, that he made a beeline for it in stunned adoration.
And the garden’s reputation is growing among the surrounding communities, and elsewhere in the centre of town.
Although the project is an initiative of the Ministry of Agriculture in tandem with the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), the garden does not receive any money for the maintenance and upkeep thereof. All income received from the sales of the vegetables and fruit gets ploughed back for the purchasing of seedlings and other equipment required.
“We do not receive a salary working here,” explains Ntinda. But the experience of learning how to grow crops is reason enough for her to remain committed to the project.
“I was enlisted through the Ministry of Youth,” says Ntinda, who saw a notice at the multi-purpose centre and applied as a volunteer. “When I finished Grade 12 in 2003 I didn’t have anything else to do. This is my first job in life.”
Adds Anna Haufiku (22), from the Polytechnic: “I was always interested in agriculture. I did it as a subject in Grades 11 and 12, and later joined the Polytechnic course. Agriculture is the backbone of the economy, and people can become self-employed. People in Namibia should learn to produce their own food.”
The project started off at the end of 2005, and was inspired by other success stories of small-scale, intensive agriculture in urban areas.
In Senegal, says FAO horticultural specialist and technical advisor to the Urban and Peri-Urban Horticulture Initiative Development in Namibia, Albert Fosso, similar projects have been particularly successful.
“There, the cities are so congested; people live like ants. But through improved and innovative methods, people can even grow crops on top of the roofs of high-rising apartments.”
The concept is based on the establishment of micro-gardens in such overcrowded areas by using hydroponics, which involves growing plants in sand, gravel, water and other mediums, using the barest of space, resources and energy.
The World Food Summit held in 1992 gave an impetus for a multitude of small and groundbreaking gardening schemes that have sprung up all over the world, and most importantly, in economically marginalised communities.
This project was brought to Namibia by the Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) some years ago, and local communities are starting to reap the fruits – quite literally – of their labour.
Namibia is currently over-dependent on its fruit and vegetable imports from neighbouring South Africa. The country imports more than 80 percent thereof. What this means, says Ministry of Agricultural Extension Officer Paulina Shiyelekeni, is that only the salaried workers can afford fruits and vegetables.
And, despite Africa’s rich and verdant lands, the continent is in dire need of such projects for its multiple vulnerable and marginalised populations to become food-secured. Hunger and poverty affects about 850 million people worldwide, according to an estimate by FAO. A large portion of these hungry people is living in Africa.
In Namibia, where income distribution is considered to be of the most unequal in the world, it is surmised that a huge percentage of the population is not food-secured. Moreover, 90 percent of households generate only 50 percent of all income earned. In urban settings across the country, 31 percent find themselves unemployed.
This insecurity is compounded by the fact that the country is over-dependent on its food supply from South Africa. More than 80 percent of the country’s fruit and vegetable imports come from its southern neighbour, with virtually no production of these inside the country.
This, according to Shiyelekeni, means that only salaried workers can in actual fact afford to buy fruit and vegetables on a regular basis.
It was for this reason that the ministry embarked on this project that aim to promote small-scale, intensive agriculture in urban and peri-urban areas.
“The ministry hopes to improve the diet of mostly vulnerable people, and in the process create opportunities for people to create an income,” commented Shiyelekeni.
The ministry thus embarked on the initiative, with technical assistance from FAO, in late 2005, setting up two pilot projects in Rundu and Windhoek, where it implements – and experiments – in hydroponics.
Hydroponics, says Fosso, is particularly ideal for Namibia, which generally has very poor soils, and an ever-persistent water shortage.
Volunteers and other groups often sent for training by NGOs create small wooden tables made of local and reusable materials of about one square meter to set up crop beds for a multiple crop yield.
“On one of these tables you can produce 25 heads of lettuce,” explains Ntinda. The minimal amount of space, water and other resources are used in the process. The water only needs to be filled up once every two weeks, while closely monitoring the mineral and nutrient content thereof.
Fosso explains that by using this method, fungal and other diseases are also minimised, if not entirely eliminated.
The initiative also uses “family irrigation” which allows for direct irrigation, and thus also greatly saves water. And it is easy to set up and maintain.
And, Fosso adds, with this, there is no need for often harmful pesticides or chemical fertilizers.
“In Africa, a lot of these chemicals are being sold to the detriment of crops and people alike. We want to solve that problem,” he comments. “Everything being grown in these gardens is completely organic.”
Another big advantage to this method is that it is not labour or energy intensive, with an infrastructure that can easily be put up and maintained. With many people weak, debilitated, and often hungry due to the HIV/AIDS scourge, this method is ideal for people to ably grow their own fruit and vegetables, which is essential to their health.
Not surprisingly then, is that many HIV/AIDS orphanages and organisations are jumping at the opportunity to have their own gardens. Fosso has also made contact with the Osire refugee camp to look at a possibility for these people to set up their own gardens.
“This idea is spreading like wildfire,” said FAO Programme Officer, Louis Muhigirwa. “Micro-gardens make a variety of produce possible, which make these a very practical option for urban households in general. At the beginning the idea was merely to do the pilot projects in Rundu and Windhoek. But more and more community-based organisations are coming for training and technical assistance. These gardens bring a huge difference in people’s livelihoods. The success of the project is so big that we are now trying to accommodate all requests for assistance.”
There are now several groups in Windhoek that have received assistance. According to Shiyelekeni, as many as 12 groups in the city are growing their crops according to the hydroponics concept.
Solomon Uirab, who had joined the project as a trainee two days before and preparing a wooden table, is very hopeful and full of enthusiasm: “I know I’d be able to grow my own vegetables here at home, but it is particularly important to grow vegetables on my farm in the Spitzkoppe area.”
“We would like to give fresh vegetables to people to have a balanced diet, even though Namibians prefer meat,” says the Cameroonian Fosso.
FAO has similarly set up an Internet-based free of charge database (which can be accessed from www. fao.org/hortivar) which gives detailed information of crop types and methods to be applied at any given geographical location. The Namibian details are still being inserted, and should be available in the near future.
Adds Shiyelekeni as New Era bids farewell: “Are you going to set up your table at home? You certainly should!”