• Platform offers courses on agribusiness, climate-smart farming and financial planning

• Initiative targets low regional productivity and supports broader resilience programs

Namibia’s Meatco Foundation has launched an online training platform for smallholder farmers in partnership with local and international organizations. The Agribusiness e-Academy, announced on Dec. 2, aims to build farmers’ skills and resilience by offering courses on agribusiness, climate-smart farming, financial planning and value chain development.

The program is implemented with Meatco Northern Communal Area, the Namibia National Farmers Union, the Ministry of Agriculture, Water and Land Reform, and GIZ’s Farming for Resilience (F4R) program, with support from the GIZ Agri-Business Facility for Africa’s Matching Grant Fund.

The training focuses primarily on livestock, sheep and goat farming, but is open to anyone in the agricultural sector, including producers, teachers and extension officers. The e-Academy represents the first phase of a two-part program to build agro-industrial skills. The second phase, planned for 2026, will take the form of a Farmer Business School, offering tools to identify market opportunities, manage income more effectively and diversify activities.

The e-Academy forms part of the Business Support Facility for Resilient Agriculture Value Chains, a joint initiative of the European Union, the Organisation of African, Caribbean and Pacific States and the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development, implemented with GIZ.

The initiative comes at a time of low agricultural productivity in southern Africa. A 2024 regional report by the African Development Bank notes that agricultural labour productivity remains low in several countries due to largely unmechanized family labour, non-irrigated crops and limited adoption of modern technology. The World Bank adds that small-scale producers, often lacking quality inputs, infrastructure and technical services, face lower competitiveness and modest yields.

Félicien Houindo Lokossou