Africa-Press – Namibia. AS the country’s farmers increasingly diversify their activities, the Namibia Charcoal Association (NCA) last week met representatives of some shipping lines to resolve the challenge of handling charcoal shipping containers.
According to the latest issue of the Namibia Agricultural Union newsletter, the situation where charcoal is treated as dangerous material with its containers restricted to a specific area on ships, is expected to improve next year.
With an estimated export volume of 200 000 tonnes in 2020, the country currently ranks among the top 10 charcoal exporting countries worldwide. The core markets are South Africa, the United Kingdom, Germany, France and Greece.
Increasingly, Namibian charcoal is entering new markets such as the Middle East and Australia. In April this year, the first consignment of 350 tonnes of charcoal valued at N$2 million, was shipped from Namibia to America.
“We expect a new shipping line to join forces with the charcoal industry towards the beginning of March 2022,” said the NCA.
This will ease the challenges of the number of charcoal containers shipped. The new shipping line will be able to move more containers in the long run than some existing major shipping lines, NCA said.
Another measure to help increase volumes of charcoal shipped to export markets is the fitting of a ‘proliner’ on the containers. This is equipment through which all air can be sucked out of containers, reducing the chances of spontaneous combustion during shipping.
This means the charcoal will then no longer be regarded as a dangerous product, and transporters will be able to double their capacity as containers no longer have to be placed in one specific area on a vessel.
The training on installing and use of the proliner is set to be conducted towards the end of January by trainers from Europe, although this will depend on travel restrictions.
“We are also negotiating with yet another shipping line to use different routes for charcoal containers which should bring further relief.”
“The outlook for 2022 is therefore brighter than in 2021. We expected record exports for our charcoal, but early indications are that the export figures have slumped by at least 30 to 40%.
“It is still too early to provide accurate export figures. The demand for our charcoal, however, is growing internationally,” NCA added.
Charcoal production is a strategic industry for Namibia that has, in line with the fifth National Development Plan, been selected by the government for a specific focus on its economic development.
The industry has significant potential to promote capital formation, diversification of income sources as well as rural livelihood strategies and resilience, especially for emerging farmers, as the barriers to entry are relatively low, said the NCA.
There is also scope for the creation of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) run by previously disadvantaged groups providing state-of-the-art bush harvesting and charcoal-processing services.
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