A farmer from Okakuu Village in the Omusati Region is cultivating a rare dwarf papaya variety, Calina F1 IPB Hybrid, in what he describes as a promising agricultural venture with plans to expand into value addition.

Tommy Haitembu started the project in 2024, but the initial stages came with challenges, as they lost about 1,000 seedlings. The experience, however, gave them valuable lessons in growing the new variety.

He says the papaya was introduced to offer an alternative to the indigenous varieties commonly grown in the country.

"This is a dwarf variety, the Calina F1 variety. It's a short hybrid that matures very fast in about 8 months; it will mature and start setting fruits. This is actually a rare variety from Institute Pertanian Bogor (IPB) in Indonesia, developed by researchers and breeders so that it can pick up pace much faster than our normal indigenous papayas."

The orchard currently has about 1,440 mature trees, which Haitembu describes as a lucrative venture and one of the few orchards of its scale in the Omusati Region.

Rather than relying only on fresh fruit sales, Haitembu wants to establish a processing operation that could create additional income and employment opportunities.

"Our priority with these fruits is actually not to sell the fruits themselves but to value-add to our products, which means we want to value-add to the products to make jams; we want to value the product to make papaya juice, with the papaya can also be extracted the white liquid right before they are ripe, which can be extracted as papain, which is heavily and widely used in the pharmaceutical and health industries."

The farm also produces chilli, sweet potatoes and butternuts to supplement the orchard.

Three people currently work at the farm, including Haitembu, his mother and a friend.

They rely on temporary workers during harvesting but plan to employ permanent staff next year.

Haitembu says they are also open to training other farmers interested in venturing into papaya production.