Farm4trade in partnership with the University of Namibia (UNAM) is set to embark on a national project to develop an innovative tool to improve pasture and rangeland management for Namibian farmers through research and artificial intelligence technology.
This project, which stems from a Memorandum of Understanding between the two institutions, aims to resolve the threat to Namibia’s rangelands and ecosystems by creating a tool that estimates the carrying capacity, pasture, and bush biomass of a specific area in a selected period with the support of other local partners.
Hikevali Ndinomuwa, Project Research Assistant at UNAM’s Animal Science Campus – Neudamm Campus – explained that this project is important to combat the increasing loss of pastureland for animals through numerous factors such as climate change and bush encroachment, amongst others.
He further elaborated: “A lack of adequate land management paired with overgrazing and drought affects pastureland which leads to reduced available food for animals and endangers Namibia’s biodiversity and food security”. Effects that this project aims to reverse through research and training – which will be the university’s key role in this MoU.
The rangeland and pasture management dataset from this project will directly help farmers with the necessary tools to manage, plan and mitigate rangeland health better through access to rangeland mapping. This data will also be used to support the development of forecasting Machine Learning models to improve pasture management strategies and simplify decisions on the carrying capacity of selected areas by Farm4trade.
To achieve this, up to 20 areas equally distributed among Namibian ecoregions will be selected and monitored over one year by local experts and field enumerators. Students and lecturers will also be involved, in order to capacitate UNAM students. Interested farmers, enumerators, and students are encouraged to participate by visiting the Farm4trade website for registration. (https://www.farm4trade.com/)
CEO of the Farm4trade team, Andrea Capobianco Dondona remarked that: “We are driven by the positive impact that this first dataset will bring to Namibia’s rangeland and pasture management. We are looking forward to cooperating with interested parties to ensure this project meets Namibia’s needs”.
Farm4trade is a company that develops solutions to improve productivity and traceability in the zootechnical industry. The company has an existing MoU with UNAM which encompasses different training and research programme objectives. The rangeland and pasture management project will be conducted over a period of two years.
