Irene !Hoaës
11 November 2008
Windhoek — The Director of the Namibia Nature Foundation, Dr Chris Brown, says the Ministry of Lands and Resettlement and its stakeholders should focus on other forms of land use rather than just farming.
Brown, who was speaking at a one-day conference on post-settlement support for emerging farmers, said settlers could engage in additional activities such as trophy hunting, which generates more money than small livestock.
The purpose of the conference was to reflect on the needs of emerging farmers and take stock of post-settlement support in the country.
The call everywhere, by many including resettlement beneficiaries themselves, is for support services for newly resettled commercial farmers.
Most newly resettled farmers do not have the financial means to carry out productive farming on their newly acquired farms and would thus need additional technical and financial support.
Hence, Brown's call for diversifying land use that could become a form of income security to "new commercial farmers" who are struggling to make ends meet.
"Agribank should actually change its name to the Land Bank, so that it could include activities such as aquaculture, tourism and gardening and other forms of off-farming activities," suggested Brown at the conference.
The US-funded NNF supports a Namibia-led approach through the Ministry of Lands and Resettlement to address and strengthen sustainable land reform to achieve Namibia's development objectives and vision.
The programme objective is to apply and test different support approaches for resettlement as pilot initiatives, as well as build capacity and skills of the emerging land boards and resettled farmers.
Feasibility studies on other land use options and investments are currently done such as a tourism development at the Klein Karas resettlement farm and an aquaculture development at the Queen Sofia resettlement farm.
"We should create a diversity of opportunities so that other sides and possibilities are not neglected," Brown advised.
Brown also emphasised capacity building for resettled farmers, citing areas such as building capacity in water resource management to fix water equipment.
Maintenance of farm equipment is one of the major problems that resettled farmers are said to experience, hence equipping them with skills.
The NNF is providing skills development training both on-farm and off-farm, which includes training in different trades, providing tools and materials for acquired skills and knowledge, establishing different groups and assigning those who were trained to train others, conducting business training with groups, exploring markets for products and establishing benefit sharing plans, including self-financing for sustainability of enterprises.
On-farm training includes livestock management, dry crop production, vegetable gardening, bee-keeping and water resource management.
Off-farm activities include skills development in brick making, welding, carpentry, plumbing and pipefitting, sewing, craft and glass recycling.
Brown said that N$28 637.75 was generated from off-farming activities during a pilot project.
Like many other speakers at the conference, Brown also highlighted some challenges facing the land reform process.
He cited social conflicts, especially among mixed groups and limited institutional cohesion as well as weak institutional structure.
Insufficient investment and funding also surfaced as well as complaints about the capacity of local junior staff in the line ministries and insufficient partnerships and collaboration.
"Too much emphasis is put on farming, while there is a need for diversification," Brown said.
The NNF director also emphasised a change of mindset on group resettlement areas, stating that many people have the potential to be self-sufficient off the group resettlement farms.
"No more group resettlement farms, move people out and set up existing resettlement farms as training, capa-city building and skills development centres," Brown advised.
He also called for the line ministries to outsource some of their functions for a faster and more efficient service delivery.
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