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'At first they laughed at Me'
Summary:
‘At first they laughed at Me’
By Servaas van den Bosch
“The neighbours asked me why I am playing with my land,” recalls Fukuile Tashiya laughing. “They said the field looked excavated. ‘Can you even grow plants in these big holes?’ they teased me. It’s not hard to see why Tashiya draws the ire of his fellow farmers. The 30 by 40 metre plot directly in front of his homestead vaguely resembles a playground for elephants. However, a closer look reveals a coordinated plan in the ripped earth. Deep furrows, alternated with dark heaps of freshly dug up earth, run over the length of the plot. Although the field looks out of place among the sandy top soils of Namibia’s Omusati region, Tashiya knows that at the end of the growing season he will be the one laughing.
“Instead of just planting the crops on top like we always do, last year I sowed my mahangu (pearl millet) in these lines and the result was great,” he explains. “My yield was much better and the size of the grain was big compared to other plots,” says the old farmer. Tashiya, whose gathering of clay and straw huts is situated some thirty kilometers up the road from the northern town of Outapi, is one of the farmers that took part in a conservation agriculture pilot project.
Through the Climate Change Adaptation project (CCA) of the Country Pilot Partnership (CPP) hundred demonstration plots were ploughed all over the region to show farmers how they can have a better yield while using less water and saving on labour.
In Tashiya’s case the project assisted him with ploughing and weeding and with fertilizer and seeds. “Also the project explained to us the benefits to farm in this way. It sounded interesting, but I wanted to start with a small plot first because I did not know if this new method was going to work,” says Tashiya. After overcoming the initial skepticism, the CCA pilot project under the Country Pilot Partnership (CPP), an alliance of seven Ministries in Namibia supported by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Global Environment Facility (GEF), farmers are warming up to the idea, says project manager Andreas Shilomboleni.
“Instead of conventional disc plows, rippers are used,” he explains. “These dig narrow and deep furrows. The project has one mechanized ripper available that farmers can use. The only disadvantage is that they need a tractor. In the future we plan to distribute animal‐drawn rippers because many small‐scale farmers don’t have access to tractors.”
For the full story read the attached document.
Adaptation Experience:
Through the CCA project Paavo’s family who lives in a homestead of straw huts and small cement buildings, received a plastic granary which is more resistant to floods and pests and as such helps her adapt to the changed climatic conditions. As an experiment, the CCA distributed seven of these improved granaries to households in the region to see how they boost resilience against climate change.
Results and Learning:
Refer to attached document.
Sustainability:
Refer to attached document.
Replication:
Refer to attached document.
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