Agronomic board subsidises maize, mahangu seed farmers

The Namibian Agronomic Board (NAB) is subsidising farmers to grow mahangu and maize seed for use in the 2025/26 growing season.

This initiative, which was launched under the National Drought Support Programme for Surplus and Commercial Grain Producers on 19 September, will help grain farmers to recover from the 2023/24 drought, given the good rainy season forecasted for the 2024/25 season.

In a call for expression of interest, the NAB said this programme provides a subsidy through a refund claim system on seeds (white maize and pearl millet) and fertilisers for rain-fed production.

It strictly targets commercial and surplus farmers who have planted and marketed maize or mahangu grain to millers since 2021.

“The subsidy will be proportionally shared among all six grain production zones of Namibia, but on a first come, first served basis,” the NAB says.

In addition, the NAB initiated a mahangu seed production subsidy aimed at producing 80 tonnes of certified mahangu seeds strictly under irrigation for the 2024/25 planting season, using local varieties.

This subsidy is limited to 8kg or four bags of 2kg of foundation mahangu seeds per hectare, the board says.

“The programme provides a 100% subsidy on mahangu seeds and fertilisers to producers/farmers who are required to grow mahangu seeds during the 2024/25 planting season for the 2025/26 commercial production planting season,” the statement reads.

For fertiliser, the subsidy is limited to 100kg (two bags of 50kg) of monoammonium phosphate or nitrogen-phosphorous-potassium fertilisers per hectare, and 100kg (two bags of 50kg) of urea, ammonium sulphate or limestone ammonium nitrate per hectare.

According to Theresia Angala, the NAB officer coordinating applications, farmers have shown a lot of interest in the programme.

“Although the programme started in September, and the call for expression of interest was only issued last week, we have had a lot of enquiries from farmers and a number of applications had already been submitted,” she says.

Angala says applications can also be submitted through the NAB Ongwediva office for the north-central and at Katima Mulilo for the Zambezi and Kavango areas.

The NAB will closely monitor seed production activities in the field up to the day of harvesting and packaging, and the harvested seeds will be sold to farmers at a 20% discount.

Farmers must have a minimum of 5ha and a maximum of 80ha dedicated to this project, with a functional irrigation system in place and a reliable source of water, the NAB says.

– email: matthew@namibian.com.na