Dr Maliata Athon Wanga

Dr Maliata Athon Wanga is an Agricultural Scientific Officer with Namibia’s Ministry of Agriculture, Water and Land Reform (MAWLR); he completed his PhD in Crop Science (2022) through the University of KwaZulu Natal’s African Centre for Crop Improvement (ACCI) using mutation breeding techniques to develop drought-tolerant sorghum varieties. Wanga is based at Mannheim Crop Research Station, Tsumeb, leading plant breeding and soil moisture and nutrition research programs in the Ministry. He joined the Ministry in 2008 with a National Diploma in Agriculture from Ogongo Agricultural College (2006), Namibia, as an Agricultural Research Technician stationed at Kalimbeza Crop Research Station, Zambezi region, before moving to Bagani Crop Research Station in Kavango East region (2010). He contributed to research activities that played a major role in introducing rice cultivation in the Zambezi flood plains. Wanga upgraded his studies to a Bachelor of Technology degree in Agricultural Management from the Polytechnic of Namibia (2010), and a Master of Agricultural Science from the Kindai University in Japan (2017). His interest is to develop improved crop management for enhanced yield and product quality. He serves as Country Counterpart for the Joint IAEA/FAO Technical Co-operation Project: improving crops for drought resilience and nutritional quality. Wanga was a member of the “Namibia-Japan Rice Mahangu Project” research project that studied the introduction of rice cultivation in the seasonal wetlands of northern Namibia. He believes that coordinated research efforts can lead to improved crop productivity to reduce hunger and poverty.