Namibia: Crop Cultivation in Full Swing in the North

Posted on : Thursday , 14th January 2016

The land is covered in greenery and the livestock are slowly starting to show signs of recovery from the fresh nutrition brought by the recent rains.

Although it is not certain whether the dry spell experienced last year has finally been broken, communal farmers are optimistic that the trend of assisting livestock to get up every morning is gradually coming to an end.

Of late many farmers have had to assist their livestock to stand up in order to feed during the day in the hope of saving the few beasts that have survived the prolonged drought.

Although the prospects of rain are somewhat gloomy, farmers are hopeful that this year will be different from the last. Many farmers active near Ondangwa spoke of losing livestock during the severe dry spell last year. "Some kraals are completely empty and it has left a lot of farmers devastated," said one concerned farmer.

Currently, many are already busy cultivating their fields, which is a slight change from the situation last year. "This time last year a lot of people had not yet ploughed their fields, because the rain only really started coming towards the end of January and persisted towards the end of March," said an elderly Simeon Paulus from Ongwediva.

"However, this year it is quite different. The crops are already big and people have already started ploughing," he said.

Similar sentiments were echoed by Mwadhina Nghiliganye, a domestic worker in Omuntele Constituency, who said there was not much work in the fields when school commenced last year. Although it has been the norm that many learners assist with cultivating the fields before they leave for school, due to the drought it was not the case last year.

"This time last year, we were still lazing around, waiting for the rain to fall, but it seems as the situation has returned to normal," said Nghilinganye.