Old farming practices, ancestral knowledge revived

Delving deep into Namibian traditions and traditional farming methods, Zambezi Green Commercial Farm is reviving centuries’ old farming practices and ancestral knowledge to reclaim agricultural productivity on a sustainable level.

This farm was established by Mr. Rector Muchimamui Mutelo as a pilot gardening project on a quarter of a hectare in 2017. Mutelo wanted to restore local knowledge in farming to improve food security, nutrition, crops and soils in Namibia. He is using organic fertilisers and compost made from organic material waste mixed with livestock waste.

Since the farm is a client of Agribank, a team visited it on 15 August and they were stunned and impressed at the scale of operation, the bank says in a press release.

“It’s a magnificent operation that if adopted by farmers in the region could make the region as a much talked about slogan of being a breadbasket of Namibia a reality in a short-period of time,” Mr. Regan Mwazi, executive for marketing and customer strategy.

With financing from Agribank in 2018, the farm has been expanded to seven hectares and supplies the local retailers such as Pick n Pay and Spar with fresh horticultural products throughout the year. It supplies 700 kg of tomatoes every week to each of these retailers.

It also produces crops such as watermelon, green maize, okra, cabbage and butternuts. According to Mwazi, the farm has created 5 permanent and 15 temporary jobs and has the potential to create more with the envisaged expansion.

Mutelo was quite surprised and happy to receive the Agribank delegation and took them around the farm to show them the potential that exists. According to him produce are bought while still under plantation and/or germination.

Mutelo told the Agribank team his first need is to drill a second borehole. The second need is to obtain further funding for production inputs and drip irrigation infrastructure in order for him to expand the farm from the current 7 hectares to 30 hectares. He has already debushed the area and is currently cleaning it up.

In addition Mutelo explained that his farming practice do not merely reduce environmental impact by producing fewer greenhouse emissions and championing the revival of traditional farming practices, but his personal connection to the land and its sustainable farming methods produced some of the finest crops ever harvested. “The farm’s high-quality harvests included watermelons that weighed 18kg in average that were snapped up by Namibia’s largest grocery retailer, Spar, with equally abundant maize and green pepper yields. The latter of which were picked up by Pick n Pay,” Mutelo stated.

He turned the initial pilot project into the Zambezi Green Commercial Farm in 2018 and currently he takes on the challenge of developing it into a centre of excellence, both in organic farming as well as in agricultural research.

“What’s old is new again. Our ecologically-sound agricultural practices stem from traditional knowledge that is holistic in nature,” noted Mutelo. For the long-term benefit of the society and the planet, Zambezi Green aims to be a research farm that strives to advocate for this more resilient agricultural system as well as partnering with the ministry of agriculture, water and forestry, research institutions, universities, colleges and educational institutions.

In addition, working directly with local farmers in Namibia, Zambezi Green is committed to improve their economic state by validating and scaling up their organic farming techniques. “We advocate the use of heritage agricultural know-how for the sustainable food production,” he concluded.