Africa

The Namibian Livestock Producers’ Organisation (LPO) has welcomed the encouraging results of new research being conducted on the ongoing epidemic of kudu rabies in Namibia.

The Namibian dairy sector is battling to survive, with production decreasing and the price-cost squeeze forcing producers to exit the sector.

The recent foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) outbreak in Namibia at the end of 2020 was largely contained and did not pose a threat to areas south of the veterinary cordon fence in the north of the country, according to Thinus Pretorius, chairperson of Nambia’s Livestock Producers’ Organisation (LPO).

Smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa are, on average, using fertilisers at well-below recommended rates in their crop production. This was according to the results of a study conducted by researchers from the University of Illinois (UoI) in the US, largely because these farmers perceived their locally available fertiliser products to be of sub-standard quality.

Conflict between humans and Namibia’s growing elephant population can be described as a “problem of success”, says Colin Nott, a Namibian regenerative agricultural consultant.

A widespread outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) in Namibia could potentially wipe out the entire livestock production industry in that country.

Beef cattle sales in Namibia have fallen 31% so far this year compared with the same period in 2019, despite producer price increases of 2% for slaughter cattle and 39% for weaners.

A devastating wildfire that raged on 11 farms in the Otjiwarongo district, in the northern part of Namibia late last month, destroyed 30 000ha of grazing over a period of three days.

No definitive answers have yet been found for the mass die-off of elephants in Botswana since May this year. Early research results have suggested, however, that the deaths could be attributed to a naturally occurring toxin.

COVID-19’s arrival in Africa has exacerbated pre-existing major challenges to the continent’s food production and nutrition security.

The first-ever commercial harvest of blueberries in Namibia recently commenced on the banks of the Okavango River between Mashare and Mupapama villages in Kavango East, northern Namibia.

The cause of death of hundreds of elephants in the northern part of Botswana’s Okavango Delta remains a mystery, with more than 400 carcasses having been discovered since May this year.