Namibia country report

Farm plan for Tulpvlei resettlement farm in Hardap.In order to complement land redistribution in the freehold sector, government pursued theidea of identifying so-called unutilised communal land with a view to surveying smallscalecommercial farms and allocating them to previously disadvantaged Namibians. Theconsultants hired by the MLR to carry out this investigation included planners who served inmanagerial positions in the pre-Independence Department of Development Co-ordination inthe 1980s which published several tomes on (agricultural) development in pre-IndependenceNamibia, espousing the virtues of economic units as a means to promote the development of amiddle class. It is therefore no coincidence that the model for developing communal land intosmall-scale commercial farming units is identical to those first developed by the 5-Year Plan.This discourse on communal land and customary tenure had an impact on land reform inthe communal areas. On the one hand, a number of wealthy and politically well-connectedpeople fenced off communal land for individual use without proper authorisation by thestate, thereby continuing a process that had started before Independence. The extent ofprivatisation is not clear, but that it has impacted negatively on transhumance patterns insome communal areas has been documented (Cox et al. 1998).The discourse on agricultural planning and development just discussed also found its wayinto the National Agricultural Policy of 1995 and the National Land Policy of 1996. Theformer stated that the subdivision of agricultural land would be permitted only if, inter alia,“appropriate provision is made for the maintenance of farming units of an economicallyviable size and the long term sustainability of natural resources and agricultural productionon the land” (RoN 1995: 35). This principle was incorporated into the National Land Policywhich stated that the subdivision of large-scale farming units should be conditional on the“maintenance of farming units of an economically viable size” (MLRR 1998a: 16).Section Livelihoods A ● 2. Land after Reform Land and Reform: Poverty: Namibia National country Policy report Context (2010) ● 31