By Dhiladhila Magazine · Issue 05

A tenfold wheat quarter makes a spectacular percentage. The number that matters is the falling import bill.

When the Namibia Statistics Agency published its quarterly agriculture bulletin on 28 March 2026, one figure carried the headline: controlled grain production had risen 375.9 percent year on year. The number is real, and it is also smaller than it sounds. It measures a quarter, not a country, and it rests on a wheat harvest that grew more than tenfold off a very low base.

The market question is not how large the percentage is but what it does to the import bill. Namibia buys most of its grain abroad, so every locally milled tonne is a rand not sent overseas. In the fourth quarter of 2025 the agronomy import bill fell to N$488 million (about US$26 million), from N$863 million a year earlier.

A percentage built on a small base

Controlled agronomy output reached 22,643 tonnes in the fourth quarter of 2025, against 4,758 tonnes in the same quarter of 2024. Wheat alone accounted for 21,058 tonnes, a rise of 1,057.6 percent. A tenfold jump on a thin base produces a spectacular percentage and a modest tonnage, and both readings are true at the same time.

For a macro analyst the base effect is the whole story. A harvest this concentrated in one crop and one quarter can reverse as easily as it arrived, which is why the statistician-general, Alex Shimuafeni, attributed the gain squarely to wheat rather than to any broad structural change. The level matters more than the rate.

A 375.9 percent rise off 4,758 tonnes is a real gain and a fragile one.

The import bill is the number that counts

Namibia’s grain story has always been a trade-balance story. The country consumes far more grain than it grows, so the meaningful measure of progress is the size of the import bill, not the domestic growth rate. The drop from N$863 million to N$488 million in a single quarter is the kind of movement a finance ministry notices.

That saving flows straight into the current account. Grain bought at home keeps money circulating inside the economy instead of paying foreign millers and shippers, and it softens exposure to world wheat prices and freight costs that Namibia cannot control. Import substitution, done at scale, is quietly a monetary matter as much as an agricultural one.

Every tonne milled at home is a rand kept out of the import column.

Exports are not the point yet

The same bulletin recorded agronomy export earnings of just N$175,500 for the quarter, down 79.5 percent from N$855,200 a year earlier. Read alongside a record wheat harvest, that looks contradictory until the strategy becomes clear: this grain is grown to be eaten at home, not shipped abroad for sale.

For a market watcher the falling export line is a feature rather than a fault. A country that imports two-thirds of its grain has no business exporting the little it grows. The value here is measured in imports avoided, and the export figure is close to a rounding error against the import line.

Import substitution, not export earnings, is the return on this harvest.

How durable is the gain

The forecasters are cautious. The Namibia Agricultural Union expects the country to rely on imports for 67 percent of its grain in 2026, only marginally better than the 73 percent of 2025, with wheat demand still about 16 percent met locally. One strong quarter does not move a structural ratio far.

The constraint is capacity, not effort. Limited irrigated land and high climate sensitivity cap how much grain Namibia can grow in any season, so a good quarter and a stubborn annual dependence sit side by side without contradiction. The market should treat the 375.9 percent as a signal of direction, not a change of state.

Direction is improving; the dependence ratio has barely moved.

For an investor or a policy analyst, the 375.9 percent figure is best read as a marker on a long curve rather than a turning point. The decision it frames is where to place a bet: on the wheat harvest that produced one striking quarter, or on the irrigation and milling capacity that would turn a single quarter into a durable dent in a N$488 million quarterly import bill.

Sources: The Namibian; 2026 NAU Agricultural Forecast (Namibia Agricultural Union); Namibia increases local produce output to cut imports (FreshPlaza)