A worker proudly shows off one of the houses provided by their employer.
The good business sense of
sound environmental and social practices How a generational farmer is advancing his family farm with quality environmental and social practices
M
bati Tjiho is a generational farmer who in 2017 traded his office job of twentyfive years for exploring his passion for farming. His farm, which was predominantly focused on livestock, is located close to the town of Outjo in the Kunene Region of Namibia. Mbati has seen the impact of bush encroachment on his family farm first- hand. “Some farms in my area have much more grasses than our farm. My farm was overgrazed and encroached. Today my grasses don’t grow that high, but it is something I am correcting”, Mbati says. “I realised that encroaching bush presents an opportunity for the farming industry in Namibia. It is a problem for livestock grazing. But some have started adding value to the bush. Either charcoal production, firewood production, or biochar and many other products from the bushes. My main reason was to improve the grazing capacity of the farmland.” HOW MBATI DIVERSIFIED HIS FARMING BUSINESS “When I started farming, my father was producing some charcoal, but I didn’t know how big this business should be to be profitable. Unfortunately, my father passed away at the end of 2017 and this meant I had to take over the farm operations. At the beginning of 2018 I became a member of N-BiG”, Mbati says, referring to the Namibia Biomass Industry Group (N-BiG), a support organisation to the Namibian biomass industry.
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“With N-BiG’s assistance, we did an assessment of the farm. We did the calculations and came to the conclusion that there is a lot that I can do here”, Mbati continues. “However, I didn’t have much experience then, so I had to knock on the different doors in the industry, the regulators and the industry stakeholders. I also became a member of the Namibia Charcoal Association (NCA). At that time, if there was any article about the industry, I would be reading it. I used every opportunity to attend training or workshops to gain an understanding of the industry. Then I started with my production. When I took over from my father the production was very small. My father had twelve kilns which produced enough to supply two to three trucks per year. I used my own savings to acquire more, and push our numbers to thirty kilns.” DEMAND DRIVES QUALITY ENVIRONMENTAL PRACTICES Mbati says he quickly realised that the real driver of the charcoal industry is the demand for quality products. “I understood the issue of demand and the requirements of the customers where the products are being sold. Especially in Europe customers are discerning about their products. They need to meet environmental and social standards. This was when I first heard about FSC.”
