Our question in

Happy Birthday and Sustainche Farm™ Project Polling # 4

read:

Which rainy season showed the LOWEST rainfall at Sustainche Farm™ during the past three years ?

Our voters were 100% correct ! Congratulations 🙂

Yes, it was the rainy season 2012/13 that showed the lowest rainfall at Sustainche Farm™ during the past three years. The diagram above displays the cumulative seasonal rainfall (October to April) since 2009/10 and against the long-term average.

As mentioned earlier with Sustainche Farm™ Project: The Weather Episode
his year’s rainy season started nicely with rain as early as late September 2012. However, January and February 2013 didn’t bring the necessary major rainfall of 84 mm and 81 mm as known during average years. As a consequence the seasonal rainfall accumulated just above 300 mm. 165 mm below long-term average rainfall might not look too important to European farmers. However, for us small scale, 8 ha Mahangu farmers in Northern Namibia it determines the harvest result.

Take a look again at the graphs above. The fairly good Mahangu harvest as of 2011/12 with nicely distributed rainfall and cumulative 500 mm is our ‘good case scenario’ benchmark. In contrast the 1,000 mm rainfall as of 2010/11 did NOT provide an extremely good Mahangu harvest, but resulted in major flooding events throughout Northern Namibia. After all in 2011 the only benefit due to the ‘efundja’ flood waves from Southern Angola was that plenty of catfish were washed into Owambo oshanas and giving Tatekulu the chance to enjoy fishing until July that year 🙂

We will keep you updated how Sustainche Farm™ deals with the current drought situation, which – beyond Mahangu – also tackles our animals, both cattle and goats.