CARP+ Ongoing Projects

Project Summary
With Namibia being the driest country in sub-Saharan Africa, recurrent droughts pose severe challenges to local farmers. Since extensive farming is predominant inNamibia, livestock depends on rangelands for feeding. These feed resources areworsened by bush encroachment. Around 45 million hectares of agricultural land is affected by bush encroachment in Namibia. Although several attempts have been done to address the problem, valuable research that analyses and supports the entirevalue chain with a special focus on communities and sustainable production is still missing. The University of Namibia aims to coagulate the different efforts in thecountry under a scientific umbrella that can reliably create value for the agricultural sector working towards reducing gender inequality and poverty through sustainable production. The CARP+ project will investigate the potential economic and environmental value chains through which the encroacher bushes can be utilised by the smallholder farmers. The research activities ill generate information on the use and economic viability of using different plant fractions of the encroacher bushes into marketable products and by-products. In addition, the project is expected to build capacity among both men and women in rural Namibia and TVET students, inaddition to the training of undergraduate and postgraduate students. Read More