Namibia country report

of the allocated unit, but the numbers did not suffice for buying a farm under the AALS. Atthe same time, they did not make enough money from farming and had to supplement theirfarming income with income from other employment or their business. In effect, therefore,resettlement land posed a barrier to expansion with no viable exit strategy.The case of Matthias exemplifies the ‘blocked accumulation’ trajectory. He was born inWindhoek in 1956 and went to school there. Having completed his schooling, he worked for10 years for the predecessor of Agra. He then joined another employer, but soon thereafter,in 1985, he decided to invest in a vehicle to work full time as a taxi driver in Windhoek. Heexpanded his business in 1995 when he bought a mini-bus to travel between Gobabis andWindhoek. Later he bought another mini-bus, and drove both of them himself until retiringfrom driving in 2003. He still owned the business but had recruited drivers to drive for him.In 1975, at the age of 19, he started buying cattle, one at a time. He took them to Epukiro wherehis mother and brother looked after them. In 1989 he had 38 cattle which he transferred fromEpukiro to land hired from a white commercial farmer in the Witvlei area. His applicationsfor resettlement in 1990 and 1991 were unsuccessful. Then, this being a time of drought,the Ministry of Agriculture, Water and Rural Development bought some farms in Omahekefor drought relief purposes, Rosenhof being one. Matthias applied for permission to takehis cattle to Rosenhof, and was permitted to use two camps there for three years. He wentthere in 1992 and was still farming in the same camps in 2008. He arrived there with 46cattle. In 2008, though down to only 6 cattle, he had 90 head of small stock. These numbersexceeded the land’s carrying capacity, with the result that some of the animals were grazingin the road reserve. He had applied at least 10 times for proper resettlement but thus farhad not been successful. All this forced him to reduce his livestock numbers.5.6 Evaluating outcomesIt has been stated in this report that the current model for resettlement is one of small-scalecommercial farming. However, the planning criteria for implementation are not entirelyclear. One guideline has been the minimum annual income required to remain above thepoverty datum line. Allocated units were expected to yield incomes as high as but preferablyhigher than the poverty datum. As rough gross margin calculations have demonstrated,under optimal conditions, beneficiaries should be able to generate higher revenues thanthe poverty datum from recommended minimum farm sizes. However, as reliable incomedata was difficult to obtain in this survey, it was not possible to assess the extent to whichbeneficiaries in the Hardap and Omaheke samples were able to produce at optimum levels.The gross margin calculations have also revealed that the recommended minimum farmsizes for northern and southern regions were inherently unequal. Beneficiaries in the southshould be able to generate much higher incomes from their 3 000 ha allocations thanbeneficiaries in the north with 1 000 ha allocations. The findings of this study bear this out:those in Hardap do indeed appear to have generated higher incomes from farming thantheir counterparts in Omaheke.118 ● Livelihoods after land reform: Namibia country report (2010)