Browsing by Author "Shipandeni, Maria N. T."

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    Climate change adaptation strategies among smallholder livestock farmers in Namibia's Omaheke Region, Namibia
    (Discover Sustainability, 2025) Siririka, Ndjipua Avihe Tjaondjo; Charamba, Vonai; Mupangwa, Johnfisher; Shipandeni, Maria N. T.; Kahumba, Absalom
    The challenges of climate change are continuously increasing, constituting a major threat to livestock production, which is more than a socio-economic cornerstone in Namibian rural communal farmers, contributing approximately two-thirds of the country’s agricultural GDP. Climate variability, which may be in the form of drought, very high temperatures, floods and frosts has been reported to have detrimental effects on feed and water availability, leading to reduced livestock weight, growth, production and reproductive performance, and ultimately high mortality. Understanding smallholder farmers’ socio-psychological antecedents such as knowledge, attitudes and perceptions and the way they influence their level of adaptation to CC mitigation strategies needs to be assessed, as it guides CC policy formulation and intervention programmes. The study investigated CC perception and adaptation strategies for livestock farmers in Omaheke Region. Data were gathered from (n=80) purposively sampled farmers in Epukiro and Otjombinde constituencies based on livestock ownership. The study revealed that 93.8% of the respondents were aware that the climate is changing, with attributes such as very high and very low temperatures, high and low rainfall, and drought having been noticed. Climate change has been attributed to both human and natural activity. The study observed that the implementation of CC adaptation strategies in livestock agriculture is low, thus recommends that the improvement of adaptation techniques involving employing extension services, promotion of farmer-to-farmer extension, and utilization of various information sources of climate knowledge, such as farmers’ associations and social organizations, should be the future policy priority
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    Indigenous knowledge of browse species and nutritional quality of dominant indigenous browse species in the Kavango West Region of Namibia
    (Discover Sustainability, 2024) Hamukwaya, Rosa N.; Charamba, Vonai; Kahumba, Absalom; Shipandeni, Maria N. T.; Mupangwa, Johnfisher
    Livestock production is crucial to the livelihoods of rural Namibians but highly constrained by feed shortages due to climate change and bush encroachment. The study investigated the grazing and feeding practices and indigenous knowledge of browsable and non-browsable species by interviewing 30 small-scale farmers in the Kavango West Region. It assessed the nutritive value for the three most commonly identified browsable species. The study observed that livestock relies on communal rangeland, roadside, and riverside grazing, with supplements from crop residues during the dry seasons. However, most farmers experience feed shortages mainly in the dry season, which results in decreased livestock productivity. Farmers are knowledgeable on browsable and non-browsable woody species in their locality, but most do not harvest pods, leaves and twigs to supplement their animals in the dry season, citing labour shortage, and they are not aware that the bush species resources can be harvested and be used during seasons when feed resources are scarce. The nutritive value analysis indicated that there is a need for strategic supplementation of the browsable species for them to be effectively utilised as livestock feed, thus farmers must be capacitated on when and how to utilise these species when herbaceous pasture grasses and legumes are senescent as well as how to harvest forage alongside rivers and roads for stall feeding to avoid accidents. Our findings will be important for policy formulation in trying to come up with better ways of mitigating the consequences of climate change