JR is coordinating a weekly Poly-wide meeting on the development of a new program in Applied Biology. It’s been a fun but challenging and time-consuming opportunity to interact with the few scientists on campus and to talk about scientific skills that need to be cultivated in Namibia. This week’s topic was research, largely motivated by the fact that the new qualification will entail a research project, and there are more than 20 research-related courses already available at Poly to choose from. In a fortuitous turn of events, I also got a glimpse of scientific preparation by judging 7th and 12th grade chemistry entries in Namibia’s National Science Fair, which was held on the Poly campus in September. There’s an interesting dichotomy of perspective about whether training programs need courses in research (e.g. Research Methodology to define research and walk through the development of questions and research designs; no one debates the importance of separate, detailed statistics courses) or need research embedded in courses. For our part, we’re taking the latter approach with Non-ruminant Husbandry.
With the class, we’ve developed a 2-factor experiment to test how a change in agricultural practice would affect productivity and profit. The largest limitation to growing non-ruminants in Namibia is the feed cost – these feeds have to be nutritionally balanced (not just grass, as in ruminants), and the ingredients are almost all imported. So we asked the question of whether we could use cheaper, local feed ingredients and still get satisfactory performance. We chose to focus on chickens (rather than pigs, horses, or fish, our other non-ruminant options that would be impossible to house on campus) and to compare diets of commercial vs. hotel left-overs, with or without earthworms. A rule of thumb for chicken diets from scratch is 50% grains (bread crusts, rice, pasta, corn flakes), 25% protein sources (meat, egg, nuts, beans), and 25% greens (lettuce, chard, herbs), all chopped finely enough to make it down a small bird’s throat without chewing. The chicks get energy from the grains, proteins for building muscles, and vitamins and minerals from the greens.
There have been a few hurdles to overcome. First, chickens are illegal in Windhoek. Well, we’re only raising chicks, and they’ll be moved elsewhere when the experiment finishes at about 6 weeks. We didn’t even ask about whether it was okay to keep them for the first week in our apartment (we finally found a good use for our space heater!). Second, because the poultry industry is essentially non-existent in Namibia, there are few sources of large numbers of day-old chicks in the region. They must be imported from South Africa or purchased from Mashare Agricultural Development Institute, which is maintaining a line of Potchefstroom koekoek chickens after the end of a large trial comparing productivity of 4 breeds. Third, the veterinary fence was closed to all agricultural products from early August, when FMD broke out in the Kavango region. Chickens don’t carry FMD, but Veterinary Services doesn’t issue permits for anything when the fence is closed – until we called for weeks and finally went straight to the head vet in Namibia to get a special “red cross” permit to bring the chicks from Mashare, north of the red line, to Windhoek. This was our “chicken run.” We left Windhoek after class on Tuesday, traveled 5 hours to Roy’s Camp where we stayed the night, then pushed on to Rundu and Mashare, where we picked up the chicks, got the correct permit, and made the 8-hour drive back south to Windhoek by Wednesday evening. Roy’s Camp deserves a special note because it was one of the funkiest, most restful places we’ve stayed. JR went for a walk (!) in the bush (Roy’s camp doesn’t have any large predators) and was surprised by a LOUD barking snort that turned out to be a male kudu warning his group – I guess he was as surprised as I was! We had a wonderful dinner of kudu pockets (Okay, there are no kangaroos or other pocketed marsupials in Namibia, contrary to a variety of children’s books. These turned out to be pieces of kudu wrapped in bacon) and a half dozen different salads, most involving some sort of creamy dressing. We saw a whole herd of eland come to the waterhole at dusk, just as the “torches” made of wicks in glass bottles were being lit around the camp.
The chicks grew from 50 g at week 1 to 250 g at week 5, but faster on commercial feed than on urban leftovers. Worms helped their growth, too. We suspect that the leftovers were protein-deficient (it was a lot easier to get leftover pasta or porridge than leftover lamb or fish!) and missing some vitamins, because six of the birds began sitting on their haunches with curled toes a few days before the end of the experiment. We immediately took these birds out and put them on commercial feed with extra vitamins and minerals, and they were back to normal within a week! We’re having some feed samples analyzed chemically by the Ministry of Agriculture, so ultimately we’ll have data on what the birds actually received nutritionally.
The experiment has now ended and, despite our interest in giving 100 6-week-old chickens to a student interested in starting a chicken business, no one was able to write a business plan that actually showed a profit. The chickens moved instead to an organic farm in Okahandja – the garden city an hour north of Windhoek, where they’ll do a little grazing on cover crops, get some fishmeal from Walvis Bay, consume vegetable scraps and leftovers, and eat a bit of expensive organic nutritionally-balanced chicken food. We wish them happy (if not long) lives!
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
A change in the weather (and some more food comments)
Latitudinally, much of Namibia is tropical – we’ve passed the Tropic of Capricorn on a few trips to the south. Still, we’ve definitely experienced seasonal changes. In 2008, the summer rainy season was shifted later than normal, beginning in late-January and lasting until May. We personally experienced these late rains around 7 May at Swakopmund and 26 May at Etosha. Flamingos breed in the Etosha “pan”, a large saline body of water whose level fluctuates dramatically with precipitation and evaporation. The literature indicates that flamingos leave the coast in December to breed and return in April. This year, we watched flocks of honking pink birds fly north from Walvis Bay and the Saltworks in March, tracking the late start of the rains. They were inland until at least September, but probably didn’t breed successfully, as the pan had too much water: flamingos need a stable level so they can build mud nests rising out of the water, providing some protection from water-wary predators. The late rains were nonetheless torrential, and the northern part of the country flooded, resulting in poor crop production and emergency food deliveries.
By mid-April in Namibia, a sense of sadness is pervasive as the landscape changes from vibrant lush green to its drier hues. Stipagrostis bushmens grass has long nodding seed heads with feathery plumes, so abundant that the landscape turns silver, and the plumes accumulate before the wind in piles like small snowdrifts. Many of the desert plants seem not to be tied to the duration of the rainy season. They germinate with rain; they complete their life cycle with fog; and they fruit and dry up. So the landscape changed color even before the rainy season ended this year. Still, there were enough plants still flowering in May to keep JR’s parents busy with species identification while they visited!
Some of the plants that grow during the rainy season were worth sampling – given the history of hunter-gatherer societies in this region, we know there must be things to eat (in addition to the spiny, toxic ones that have evolved means of protecting their hard-won growth against herbivory). We saw fields of wild watermelons throughout the country, from the highlands around Windhoek to the wild lands of Etosha to the border of the Namib Desert. These melons grow slightly larger than softball-sized, and they look simply luscious as the landscape dries up, like green and gold packages of life-saving moisture. They lasted much longer than we would have expected, and in our travels we asked about their natural history: We heard that the melons can be very bitter, but that kudu and gemsbok will bite into them as other resources become scarce. At Namib-Rand, Mr. Klein collected several on our tour of the reserve and said that some plants produce bitter fruit, but others taste quite nice. The ones he selected were on the “nice-tasting” end of the spectrum, a cucumber taste crossed with watermelon consistency, harboring enormous seeds that are probably also edible if prepared correctly. At Treesleeper, with the Bushmen, we ate sweet berries, which tasted like tamarind but were mostly husk, seed, and a little fruity essence.
We missed one natural Namibian delicacy – not a plant, but a fungus. In February and March, as we drove the B-roads between Windhoek and the coast, we regularly saw people standing by the side of the road with white mushrooms as big as their heads. We were still a little dubious about food safety at this point, so never stopped, but in late April we learned from several Namibian friends that the mushrooms taste amazing as steaks sauted in butter. We should have stopped and paid no more than N$30 for one, as long as it was treated properly and not held upside down, which causes dirt to fall into the gills. In such a dry country, mushrooms are pretty rare, but these grow on termite mounds because these mound-building termites farm fungus. The mycelia send up fruiting bodies when there’s rain.
This year’s winter was not as cold as we’d been warned to expect, even at elevation in Windhoek. We never used our heaters in the apartment and never awoke to frost, although we did pass many people bundled in puffy jackets, or selling gloves on the street. Winter usually brings east winds on the coast. These hot winds are caused by freezing temperatures in the mountains, which set up a pressure differential with the coast. As the air moves from high (cold) to low (warm) pressure, it also drops in elevation, and the air heats up from this adiabatic change. When the air reaches the coast, it can be 40C, driving desert sand before it at such velocity that it sand-blasts paint off cars and knocks small children off cliffs (this latter in theory – we never tested it). The hot air is also essential for drying out the guano on the big platform constructed above one of the salt pans. Usually, the guano is “harvested” in June, but this year the process didn’t start until September. Once again, it’s proving to be a weird year - the east winds were late and infrequent.
In Namibia, the country burns in August. In general, we’ve tried to avoid driving at night in a country where the wildlife is larger than our Kombi, and the wildlife habitat comes up to the edge of the (dark, narrow, 2-lane) road. But on a couple of August nights, we were traveling after sunset through scenes out of Dante’s Inferno. Pitch black. Red flames licking through low bush. Lines of fire stretching into the air as they moved up hillsides. Thick smoke. We have heard that some of these fires are set on purpose, because they flush game, eliminate accumulated grass litter, and open up space for new vegetation growth. Indeed, we have seen green blades appear in burned-over areas. Some of the fires are probably natural or unintentional: the landscape is so dry by late winter that it seems poised to combust.
In Namibia, spring arrives in September. Despite the ongoing dry weather, some of the Acacia trees flower, and there’s a heady sweetness in the air. From our 7th floor apartment, Windhoek looks like a patchwork of purple, because all the introduced (from Australia/NZ?) Jacaranda trees are covered in purple blossoms. Historically, spring was the “little rainy season,” but the recent trend has been that Namibia receives less and less of its annual rainfall during this season. We have heard October called “suicide month”, the hottest month of the year, when clouds start gathering after months of blue-sky, dry weather. The farmers think that these clouds might drop some rain and end the seasonal drought, filling their catchments and growing a bit of new vegetation for their stock. But usually all they get is clouds, not rain. This year, however, we’ve witnessed a little rain as October ends, including unprecedented sprinkles at Swakopmund and 40 mm in a night in Windhoek. We wonder what this signals for the ocean, which is roiling around with odd winds and high production, and there may be another sulfide eruption in store…. This time, if the toxic ocean materializes, we hope to be out on the water of Walvis Bay to study it intensively first hand.
By mid-April in Namibia, a sense of sadness is pervasive as the landscape changes from vibrant lush green to its drier hues. Stipagrostis bushmens grass has long nodding seed heads with feathery plumes, so abundant that the landscape turns silver, and the plumes accumulate before the wind in piles like small snowdrifts. Many of the desert plants seem not to be tied to the duration of the rainy season. They germinate with rain; they complete their life cycle with fog; and they fruit and dry up. So the landscape changed color even before the rainy season ended this year. Still, there were enough plants still flowering in May to keep JR’s parents busy with species identification while they visited!
Some of the plants that grow during the rainy season were worth sampling – given the history of hunter-gatherer societies in this region, we know there must be things to eat (in addition to the spiny, toxic ones that have evolved means of protecting their hard-won growth against herbivory). We saw fields of wild watermelons throughout the country, from the highlands around Windhoek to the wild lands of Etosha to the border of the Namib Desert. These melons grow slightly larger than softball-sized, and they look simply luscious as the landscape dries up, like green and gold packages of life-saving moisture. They lasted much longer than we would have expected, and in our travels we asked about their natural history: We heard that the melons can be very bitter, but that kudu and gemsbok will bite into them as other resources become scarce. At Namib-Rand, Mr. Klein collected several on our tour of the reserve and said that some plants produce bitter fruit, but others taste quite nice. The ones he selected were on the “nice-tasting” end of the spectrum, a cucumber taste crossed with watermelon consistency, harboring enormous seeds that are probably also edible if prepared correctly. At Treesleeper, with the Bushmen, we ate sweet berries, which tasted like tamarind but were mostly husk, seed, and a little fruity essence.
We missed one natural Namibian delicacy – not a plant, but a fungus. In February and March, as we drove the B-roads between Windhoek and the coast, we regularly saw people standing by the side of the road with white mushrooms as big as their heads. We were still a little dubious about food safety at this point, so never stopped, but in late April we learned from several Namibian friends that the mushrooms taste amazing as steaks sauted in butter. We should have stopped and paid no more than N$30 for one, as long as it was treated properly and not held upside down, which causes dirt to fall into the gills. In such a dry country, mushrooms are pretty rare, but these grow on termite mounds because these mound-building termites farm fungus. The mycelia send up fruiting bodies when there’s rain.
This year’s winter was not as cold as we’d been warned to expect, even at elevation in Windhoek. We never used our heaters in the apartment and never awoke to frost, although we did pass many people bundled in puffy jackets, or selling gloves on the street. Winter usually brings east winds on the coast. These hot winds are caused by freezing temperatures in the mountains, which set up a pressure differential with the coast. As the air moves from high (cold) to low (warm) pressure, it also drops in elevation, and the air heats up from this adiabatic change. When the air reaches the coast, it can be 40C, driving desert sand before it at such velocity that it sand-blasts paint off cars and knocks small children off cliffs (this latter in theory – we never tested it). The hot air is also essential for drying out the guano on the big platform constructed above one of the salt pans. Usually, the guano is “harvested” in June, but this year the process didn’t start until September. Once again, it’s proving to be a weird year - the east winds were late and infrequent.
In Namibia, the country burns in August. In general, we’ve tried to avoid driving at night in a country where the wildlife is larger than our Kombi, and the wildlife habitat comes up to the edge of the (dark, narrow, 2-lane) road. But on a couple of August nights, we were traveling after sunset through scenes out of Dante’s Inferno. Pitch black. Red flames licking through low bush. Lines of fire stretching into the air as they moved up hillsides. Thick smoke. We have heard that some of these fires are set on purpose, because they flush game, eliminate accumulated grass litter, and open up space for new vegetation growth. Indeed, we have seen green blades appear in burned-over areas. Some of the fires are probably natural or unintentional: the landscape is so dry by late winter that it seems poised to combust.
In Namibia, spring arrives in September. Despite the ongoing dry weather, some of the Acacia trees flower, and there’s a heady sweetness in the air. From our 7th floor apartment, Windhoek looks like a patchwork of purple, because all the introduced (from Australia/NZ?) Jacaranda trees are covered in purple blossoms. Historically, spring was the “little rainy season,” but the recent trend has been that Namibia receives less and less of its annual rainfall during this season. We have heard October called “suicide month”, the hottest month of the year, when clouds start gathering after months of blue-sky, dry weather. The farmers think that these clouds might drop some rain and end the seasonal drought, filling their catchments and growing a bit of new vegetation for their stock. But usually all they get is clouds, not rain. This year, however, we’ve witnessed a little rain as October ends, including unprecedented sprinkles at Swakopmund and 40 mm in a night in Windhoek. We wonder what this signals for the ocean, which is roiling around with odd winds and high production, and there may be another sulfide eruption in store…. This time, if the toxic ocean materializes, we hope to be out on the water of Walvis Bay to study it intensively first hand.
Independence Day (a belated report)
On July 4, the US ambassador invited more than 500 people to her party (our invitation was number 517). Over a buffet lunch, JR mingled with politicians, heads of university departments, press, and a few other Americans. An a capella group sang national anthems of the US and Namibia, and after speeches, the group toasted each country and its president. For a stiff protocol-ridden event, it was a surprisingly moving experience. There’s nothing like being next door to Zimbabwe to make you think a little more fully and practically about democracy. Have you kept up with this saga of southern African news? Robert Mugabe is a liberation hero of Zimbabwe, a land-locked country just northeast of Namibia and bordering the mile-wide Victoria Falls. Mugabe has a street named after him in Windhoek (so do Mahatma Gandhi, Fidel Castro, and many national heros). After leading his country for (hmmm, I forget exactly) some 30 years, he stood for reelection this year. Zimbabwe used to be the breadbasket of southern Africa, with ideal climate and soil for rain-fed crops – we’ve heard the country was food-independent and exported substantial amounts, for instance to Namibia where the land is generally too arid for successful crop production. Today, Zimbabwe’s agricultural production has ground to a standstill, and, with inflation at triple digits annually, the treasury just issued a billion-dollar bill (and now may just remove 7 zeros from each denomination). Needless to say, people in the country were dissatisfied with their conditions and were prepared to vote for an opposition candidate. Two elections were held: In the first, no candidate received a majority vote (and Mugabe was overall 2nd), so Mugabe declared it void and kept himself in power, although finally agreed to a second run-off election. In the meantime, opposition supporters were harassed, tortured, and even killed, and the opposition candidate actually withdrew from the run-off, presumably to prevent escalation to civil war. On July 4, the ambassador reminded the gathering of some of the principles of democracy: free and open elections, the ability to disagree civilly, an organized transfer of power. Both the UN and African Union have noted that Mugabe is no longer a rightfully elected leader (although the heads of southern African countries have been rather quiet – deep connections from liberation struggles make it hard to criticize a fellow freedom fighter). The ambassador went on to use the US as an example: when parties lose, they go back to their constituents and try to figure out what would allow them to win next time. Without naming Barack Obama directly, she impressed upon the crowd that democracy cultivates leaders, and the strong African-American candidate indicated the on-going development of democracy in America. (The cynical part of me noted that she didn’t mention the contested outcome of the Bush-Gore presidential race, nor the role of corporate interests in determining election results, nor the relatively small spectrum of party platforms that are competitive – democracy everywhere can still use improvement.)
Meanwhile, Katie played with the kids of a fellow Fulbrighter, and we returned after the reception to chalk paintings of the American flag, complete with all Stars and Stripes. Alan spent the weekend at the “farm” of Detlef Klein, one of the Salt Company owners. This farm is on the edge of the Namib desert, so just productive enough in its 10s of 1000s of hectares to support the required minimum number of cows and goats. Over the past two decades or so that Detlef has owned the farm, the numbers of wild animals have increased dramatically – that’s what happens when they’re only hunted occasionally, rather than to remove competition with stock or to provide regular recreation for Spanish ship captains (as happens nearby). Nevertheless, Alan got to go hunting, which he’s really been longing to do in Africa, even though the last time he hunted was with his grandfather as a teenager. According to his report, two shots, two animals: a springbok from 150 m through the head (otherwise the meat is ruined, because the body size is relatively small), and a gemsbok at 250 m through the heart. The latter was so big it had to be winched into the back of the truck. Most of the next day was spent turning these animals into mince, steaks, and biltong, and we’ve been happily eating game ever since.
Meanwhile, Katie played with the kids of a fellow Fulbrighter, and we returned after the reception to chalk paintings of the American flag, complete with all Stars and Stripes. Alan spent the weekend at the “farm” of Detlef Klein, one of the Salt Company owners. This farm is on the edge of the Namib desert, so just productive enough in its 10s of 1000s of hectares to support the required minimum number of cows and goats. Over the past two decades or so that Detlef has owned the farm, the numbers of wild animals have increased dramatically – that’s what happens when they’re only hunted occasionally, rather than to remove competition with stock or to provide regular recreation for Spanish ship captains (as happens nearby). Nevertheless, Alan got to go hunting, which he’s really been longing to do in Africa, even though the last time he hunted was with his grandfather as a teenager. According to his report, two shots, two animals: a springbok from 150 m through the head (otherwise the meat is ruined, because the body size is relatively small), and a gemsbok at 250 m through the heart. The latter was so big it had to be winched into the back of the truck. Most of the next day was spent turning these animals into mince, steaks, and biltong, and we’ve been happily eating game ever since.
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