Industry 4.0-Based Large-Scale Symbiotic Systems for Sustainable Food Security in Namibia

Introduction

Since this chapter focuses on symbiotic systems for Namibia; it is important to understand the Namibian context and climatic conditions.Global warming and changing climatic conditions have impacted Namibia. Over the last decade, Namibia has faced very low rainfall that resulted in drought and food shortage. Farmers have lost crops and livestock due to shortage of water and animal fodder. At present Namibia is a net importer of vegetables, rice and fish from other countries and this leads to food dependency and insecurity. According to the World Food Programme / Namibia,

One of the major challenges is that the land availability in Namibia for agricultural forming is limited due to the fact that Namibia is a desert nation. During 2014 to 2016, Namibia experienced severe food insecurities that mainly affected rural communities due to draught and very low rainfall conditions. Specifically, southern and western parts of Namibia witnessed abnormally low rain during 2015.At the same time northern Namibia experienced heavy rain fall that caused floods, washed away crops and even resulted in soil erosion.These rains started late and there was no significant follow up rainfall to support agricultural production. During 2015, local authorities have carried out a post-harvest crop assessment and found that crop production in the country was estimated to be 46 per cent below average for the 2014/15 cropping season (Namibia Food Insecurity, 2018). In 2019, Namibia has even declared state of emergency due to severe conditions of drought (Reliefweb, 2019) and in fact, the nation has to face such situation three times in six years. The problem of water shortage in Namibia is well-known and Windhoek, the capital cityis one of the severely affected places. In 2019, water shortage in the capital city became even worse as it received approximately 163,000 cubic meters of water against the required demand of 539,000 per week (Namibian, 2019).

Obviously erratic rain fall patterns due to climatic changes have impacted Namibia badly. Then semi-arid and/ or desert nature of the land makes it difficult to source ground water and hence reduced opportunities for traditional farming. The 2013-2020 climate change strategy & action plan has set out four thematic areas, viz., Food security and sustainable biological resource base; sustainable water resource base; human health and well-being; and infrastructure well-being as critical to Namibia. Among these food security and sustainable water resource base are very critical for obvious reasons. A good number of animals have died due to acute drought conditions, Ministry of Finance, had to announcetax exemption on the importation of most fodder products to afford producers the opportunity to import the bulk of the approved products in these challenging times.

Fortunately, there are solutions, thanks to advances in smart technologies for climate friendly farming. Hupenyu et al., (2019) presented the nature of soil conditions in Namibia, and reviewed various methods of climate smart agricultural methods. Large scale symbiotic systems such as aquaponic and /or aeroponic and /or hydroponic systems have been well studied recently and there have been several real world experiences and success stories have been reported. Aquaponic systems grow aquatic animals such as fish and several varieties of plants and operate under controlled setting and use very less water. Joyce et al (2019) stated that