WINDHOEK – Just days into the new year fears are mounting countrywide that rainfall deficits last November and December portend similar prospects for the main rainy season of 2014 from January to March.
Below average rainfall in November and December brought little relief to the drought-stricken country and the first week of January 2014 has left little room for optimism, as will next week with hardly any rain in sight for most of the country.
The situation has also put a big question mark over the annual rain forecast of the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) Regional Climate Outlook Forum’s Climate Service Centre for 2014. Last year in June the centre raised Namibia’s hopes for normal to above normal rainfall from October 2013 to March 2014.
The Namibian Government went on record late last year that the country could have been better prepared to tackle the drought, which has affected close to 40 percent of the population, had the SADC weather forecasters given more accurate rainfall predictions.
The SADC weather forecasters predicted normal to above-normal rainfall from October to December 2012. This was in contrast to the Namibia Meteorological Services’ (NMS) cautioning about poor rain prospects early in February the same year.
Namibia is still in the grip of the worst drought in three decades that has left 778 504 people both food insecure and moderately food insecure. Of that figure, 463 581 people are food insecure while 330 927 are moderately food insecure, the deputy director of the Emergency Management Unit in the Office of the Prime Minister (OPM), Helena Likando, was quoted at the closure of 2013.
Namibia faces its worst drought in 30 years despite early warning signs of the drought, which started especially in the north-western parts of the Kunene Region in mid-2011. Government reserved its urgency to tackle the situation, relying on regional forecasters who predicted there would be rainfall.
Although the SADC Regional Climate Outlook Forum had predicted normal to above-normal rainfall for the period between October and December 2012 and a similar prediction for January to March this year for most of Namibia, the NMS had already reported rainfall deficits in most areas in November 2012 and between February and March 2013.
Government had been informed of these unfavourable climatic conditions late, hence its decision to initiate an interim drought relief programme in March last year and subsequently directing that an emergency food security assessment be conducted the same month. As such, government made the necessary preparations under the uncertainties of climatic conditions that prevailed.
Farmers in the Kunene and the Omaheke regions and the crop producing regions in the north whose communities were already on their knees when President Hifikepunye Pohamba declared the drought a national emergency on May 17, 2013 after the drought had already swept through some of the regions.
And now it seems almost certain that the rainfall deficits of November and December 2013 will spill over to January, February and March this year. January saw a shaky start to the new year’s rainfall when hardly any rain was recorded countrywide. The outlook for the next week is also bleak with no downpours predicted for most of the country.
At the time of going to print, the highest rainfall of 12.9mm was recorded in Rundu just before the weekend, while Katima Mulilo received 4.7mm with rain destroying some of the houses in the town. Rehoboth received 2.9mm of rain, Keetmanshoop 0.2mm and Windhoek 1mm.
Statistics show that Windhoek has received 3.8mm in the first five days of January. Last year, the capital received only 21.6mm for the whole of January, while in 2011 the record books were rewritten when Windhoek received 384mm. In 2010, 317mm were recorded in the capital.
Virtually no rain at the beginning of the planting season for dry crop producers in Namibia’s maize triangle between Grootfontein, Tsumeb and Otavi has resulted in producers planting up to 50 percent less than the previous season, which was already some 43 percent down on the planting season of 2011/12.
At least 6 000 livestock have died of which 4 000 are cattle. Crop growing regions such as Omusati, Oshana, Oshikoto, Ohangwena, Kavango and Zambezi have suffered serious crop losses due to the drought, although the impact on livestock has been reported not to be as severe.
Farmers in Omaheke, Otjozondjupa, Erongo, Hardap and Karas regions, which are predominantly livestock farming areas, are experiencing difficulty in accessing water for their livestock. All the regions have been affected, though at varying degrees due to the ecological systems.
Kunene Region remains the worst affected, especially in terms of livestock and livelihood losses that have succumbed to the region’s two consecutive droughts.
The question now is whether the SADC Regional Climate Outlook Forum’s forecasts for normal to above normal rainfall will come to fruition. The gravest risk is that of protracted drought in the event the 2014 agricultural season also experiences rainfall deficits.
By Deon Schlechter