NAMIBIA: Govt predicts improvement in harvest

JOHANNESBURG, 9 June 2004 (IRIN) - Namibian authorities have predicted an improvement in total grain production during the 2003/2004 harvest season, despite heavy rains in some parts of the country which washed away crops. The latest report of the Namibia Early Warning and Food Information Unit (NEWFIU) has forecast total production of coarse grain at 124,000 mt, 36 percent above last year's output. The unit also noted that maize production was expected to reach around 42,700 mt, about 31 percent higher than the relatively low level achieved the previous year. The UN Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) has attributed the improvement in yields to the "above average" rains during the second half of the rainy season. "Apart from the excessive rains in the Kavango and eastern Caprivi region, the country experienced above average levels of precipitation. There are already positive signs that an even better harvest during the 2004/2005 season can be expected," an FAO official in the Namibian capital, Windhoek, told IRIN. National cereal food use has been provisionally calculated at 317,700 mt, leaving 150,200 mt to be imported to cover the deficit, NEWFIU said. It recommended that emergency food interventions be provided to farmers who experienced losses due to floods in the eastern Caprivi region. An estimated 4,500 hectares of crops were destroyed due to flooding in the eastern Caprivi earlier this year.