The role of agricultural economists in supporting resilience in the Namibian livestock sector*

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size

Acknowledgements

Constructive comments on an earlier draft of the paper by Jenifer Piesse and Johann Kirsten are gratefully acknowledged.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 The sub-sectors of fisheries and forestry are excluded from this analysis. The budgetary estimate of 10% in the Maputo and Malabo Declarations needs to be corrected downwards to approximately 6.8%, based on the average Fisheries and Forestry contributions to GDP and the public budget allocations to these sub-sectors.

2 Ministry of Lands and Resettlement (MLR).

3 Ministry of Agriculture, Water and Forestry.

4 It describes the number of grazing animals (kg/ha) as management unit that support production without depleting rangeland vegetation or soil resources. The forage available for the live biomass numbers (livestock and wildlife) includes herbaceous and woody sources. Only plants that are available and palatable to grazing animals are classified as forage.

5 Selected biomass stocking based on farmers choice and rationale.

6 Discussed above. Additionally, bush encroachment, accounting for an estimated 45 million hectares of land has negative consequences on key ecosystem services, especially agricultural productivity, and groundwater recharge.

7 Producers with access to prime markets located south of the VCF.

8 Livestock and Livestock Products Board of Namibia.

9 The complete value chain includes the producer price, beef slaughtering, processing, and costs from the abattoir to point of sales, the CIF, wholesale costs and lastly the retail costs. The final weighted average price of different beef cuts per kilogramme on the retail shelf of N$149 and N$264 were used as final total chain value, respectively for 2009 and 2022.

10 In March 2024, the Namibian beef producer price was N$58.92/kg. LLPB (2023–2024).

11 Horizontal line.

12 Using the constrained forecasting method.

13 Land Reform’s Programme for Communal Land Development.