Namibia country report

they never learnt to save. They should have saved some of their income right from the startwhen government still provided food aid. Instead, they had wasted their income. Since hisarrival in 2000, the older people who started the project had not had any cash, and he hadalso not managed to save any. He said that the communal garden was a good idea in thebeginning, but now people needed to be trained to save.The evidence from Skoonheid and Drimiopsis suggests that the communal gardeningmodel does not enable beneficiaries to accumulate sufficient capital to sustain themselvesand become independent producers. All the money circulated in these communities camefrom pension and itinerant work, and this did not suffice to break the dependency ongovernment for basic inputs.The beneficiaries’ troubles with communal gardening coalesced around a desire to have theirown plots. For Alfons, the way to break dependency on government was to give beneficiariestheir own plot. He was convinced that had he been given a plot of his own, he would havebeen fine. He would have had to buy his own inputs and not wait for government.As mentioned above, the LISUP took the initiative of giving beneficiaries their own smallgardens, thereby clearly addressing a major issue in these projects. The extent of MLRsupport for this idea is unclear, but there is no doubt that it proved very popular among thebeneficiaries. Karolina at Drimiopsis said that when people received their own small plot,they started to cultivate again, and this new approach was a good one. She sold beetrootfrom her garden, and at the time of the field visit was awaiting the cash from her sales. Agovernment car had transported the produce to Gobabis. Apart from beetroot, she grewcarrots, pumpkin, watermelon and spanspek.Rudolf at Drimiopsis also received his own small garden plot in 2008. He considered thisa very good solution to the garden-related problems, and observed that many more peoplecultivated land when they knew that it was their own land. This new approach would alsoput a stop to complaints about not knowing what happened to the money generated fromthe communal garden. As the owner of his garden, he would be able to keep all the moneythat he could earn from cultivation and do with it what he considered necessary, such asbuying goats again.However, a possible downside of the individualisation of garden plots was identified byAlfons. Individualisation and the end of the communal garden could impact negatively onthe provision of some basic services to the community, such as water. Individuals who didnot have cash to contribute to the purchase of diesel would suffer the most. The communitygarden at least provided some money for purchasing diesel to pump water for the benefitof the entire community.The individualisation of garden plots (re)introduced co-operation among the beneficiariesat Skoonheid and Drimiopsis. One form of co-operation is mobilisation of family labourto tend the plots. Karolina co-operated with five family members, being the daughters ofher mother’s aunt and her father’s uncle’s son. Each of these family members had their own140 ● Livelihoods after land reform: Namibia country report (2010)