The Last Minion

A farmer from Okakuu village in the Omusati Region is growing a rare dwarf papaya variety known as Calina F1 IPB Hybrid. Tommas Haitembu says the variety was developed by researchers and breeders from the Institut Pertanian Bogor (IPB) in Indonesia. It is a short, fast-maturing variety that starts setting fruit in about eight months, earlier than indigenous papaya varieties. The project started in 2024. In the initial stages, Haitembu lost about 1,000 seedlings because the variety was new and rare in the area. He says the loss gave them valuable lessons, knowledge and experience. They currently have about 1,440 mature papaya trees. Haitembu describes the orchard as lucrative and one of the only orchards of that scale in the Omusati Region. Their priority is not only to produce fruit but also to add value to their products through papaya jam, papaya juice and papain, which is widely used in the pharmaceutical and health industries. They also grow chilli, sweet potatoes and butternuts to supplement the orchard. Three people currently work at the orchard: Haitembu, his mother and a friend. Their target market is vendors and local residents. They do not yet have permanent workers and only use temporary help during harvesting, but plan to employ full-time workers from next year. Haitembu says they are also open to training farmers who want to venture into papaya farming. Andreas Uugwanga #NBCNews #nbcdigitalnews #nbcDSTV282 #nbcGOtv20 #nbcPlusApp