Shadikongoro expects bumper harvest

RUNDU – About 35 000 tonnes of maize will be harvested at the Shadikongoro Irrigation Project in the Kavango East Region by the end of June this year, project manager Danie Marais has said.

Marais said the maize will be harvested on both commercial and small-scale farmers’ fields.

He accompanied the managing director of Agricultural Business Development Agency (Agribusdev), Petrus Uugwanga, the chairperson of the Namibia Agronomic Board (NAB), Michael Iyambo, and chief executive officer of the board, Fidelis Mwazi, on a tour of the farm on Monday.

The Shadikongoro Irrigation Farm is situated in the Mukwe constituency on 390 hectares (ha) of land, of which 90 ha is farmed by small-scale farmers.

Marais said they planned to plant maize on all 300 hectares, but only managed to cover 270 ha as some of their equipment broke at a critical time in the planting season.

The Shadikongoro irrigation project is one of the government’s most productive farms under AgriBusDev, the agency given the mandate to manage and supervise the green schemes in Namibia on behalf of the ministry of agriculture, water and forestry to ensure that adequate food is produced for local consumption.

Uugwanga said their visit was aimed at assessing production on the land since the funds used were obtained from NAB. The borad gave AgriBusDev about N$10 million as a guarantee to procure production input for the Shadikongoro, Ndonga Linena, Uvungu-Vungu, Mashare, Sikondo and Etunda green schemes.

The team is touring all government green schemes that benefited from the agreement. They are visited Uvhungu-Vhungu and Sikondo on Tuesday, and Musese in the Kavango West region yesterday. Their last stop will be Etunda in the Omusati region. - Nampa