Govt predicts a bumper crop

After a drought year in 2002/03, the Namibian government has predicted a bumper winter crop, the best in six seasons. In its current report the Namibia Early Warning and Food Information System (NEWFIS) has predicted a total grain production of 155,000 tonnes for 2004/05. A spokesperson for NEWFIS, a unit in the Ministry of Agriculture, Water and Rural Development, said the last "normal season" had produced 135,000 tonnes of grain. "This season's production is expected to be eight per cent higher than the normal production realised in 1999/2000." Last season Namibia produced only 73,200 tonnes of grain. In contrast, the NEWFIS report listed good rains, a three percent increase above last year in the area planted, and no serious outbreaks of disease as the reasons for the favourable production forecast. The NEWFIS report was based on its findings of crop planting and rainfall patterns in the six northern communal crop producing regions of Namibia: Kavango, Caprivi, Omusati, Oshana, Ohangwena and Oshikoto. The total area devoted to cereal crops in 2003/04 was estimated at 305,597 hectares. In 1996/1997, when a bumper harvest was obtained, the total area planted was estimated at 352,200 hectares. The projected total grain production includes 99,800 tonnes of millet and sorghum, and 47,000 tonnes of white maize. "With the area size to be put under winter wheat expected not to change from last season, a preliminary forecast of 8,300 tonnes of winter wheat is expected," the report said. NEWSFIS cautioned that the production forecast was "very much tentative, and it is based on the assumption that sustained, adequate and well-distributed rain will occur ... to at least the end of the first half of April 2004, to support the full development of, in particular, the crops at vegetative and flowering stages." Namibians consume 302,000 tonnes of grain annually. NEWSFIS predicts that domestic demand will have to be met by importing at least 97,000 tonnes of grain. Abdirahman Meygag, head of the World Food Programme in Namibia, said the unit's second crop assessment in May would provide a more accurate picture of the expected grain yield. The maize and sorghum crops would have been harvested and the winter wheat crop planted by then.