[O21] Cropping System / Crop Rotation

[O21-05] Rice Introduction to Botswana through the Collaboration with Namibia and Japan; Natural and Social Environment for Rice Cropping in Okavango Delta

^○Keotshephile Kashe¹, Simon K. Awala², Pamwenafye I. Nanhapo², Yoshihiro Hirooka³, Morio Iijima³ (1.Okavango Research Institute, University of Botswana, Botswana, 2.Faculty of Agriculture and Natural Resources, University of Namibia, Namibia, 3.Graduate School of Agriculture, Kindai University, Japan)

The Okavango Delta in north-western Botswana is formed by flood water from Angolan highlands. The delta comprises of permanent swamps and seasonal floodplains covering 6,000 ha and 1.2 M ha respectively. The seasonal floodplains support flood recession farming, an important land use and essential livelihood activity for poor and marginalized riparian communities living around the delta. Rice cropping has been introduced to seasonal wetlands formed in semi-arid area in Namibia located in upper stream of Okavango delta since 2004 by Japanese cooperation. Rice cropping can also be introduced in the lower stream of the Okavango Delta located in Botswana. Here, we started to introduce the rice cropping to Botswana through the collaboration with Namibia and Japan based on the knowledge of rice introduction to Namibia. Because water level in Botswana was changed more than in Namibia due to variation in flooding depth and flooding frequency, floating rice cultivars cultivated in Asia and/or drought tolerant upland rice cultivars may be ideal to cultivate in Botswana. For sustainable crop production system, basic research for the introduction of various rice cultivars cultivated all over the world, and for the natural environments along Okavango delta and social environments in the rural households is needed. Our final goal is to develop sustainable rice cropping system that is suitable to the annual flood water variation in the seasonal floodplains for resource-poor farmers utilizing the information of rice cultivation in Asia including Japan.