Namibia country report

A list provided by Agribank in October 2007 showed that 23 commercial farms had beenbought under the AALS in Mariental District and 24 in Maltahöhe District. Forty per centof the AALS farmers interviewed were part-time farmers. Half of these had farmed oncommunal land before buying a farm, while 30% had kept livestock on commercial farms.3.2 OmahekeOmaheke Region is located in eastern Namibia, bordering Botswana. Spanning an area of8 461 200 ha, it is the fifth largest region of Namibia. Almost 50% or 3 543 044 ha of land inOmaheke is registered under freehold title, and the remainder is communal land. In 2001the freehold area consisted of approximately 800 commercial farms (MAWF 2001).The agro-ecological zones in which Omaheke and Hardap Regions fall are very different.Omaheke is in a summer rainfall area. Average annual rainfall decreases in a north-southdirection, ranging from as low as 250 mm per annum in the extreme south of the region(Aminuis Constituency) to between 350 mm and 400 mm in the areas north of Gobabis (theregion’s municipal centre, located roughly in the middle of the region). Rainfall is confinedto the months of December to April, the remaining seven months being dry (NPC 2006a: 1).Omaheke is predominantly a savannah environment in which Terminalia combretum andAcacia savannahs are the dominant types of vegetation. Forest and woodland savannahsof the northern Kalahari, camel thorn savannahs of the central Kalahari and mixed shrubvegetation of the southern Kalahari are the region’s dominant vegetation zones (ibid.: 5).Approximately 90% of Omaheke is characterised as “Kalahari Sands Plateau, stabilisedsand drift with few pans [and an] average growing period of 61-90 days”, but a very shortdependable growing period of 6 days (Coetzee 1999: 42). 12 Therefore Omaheke as a whole isregarded as having low suitability for crop cultivation (Mendelsohn 2006: 29). Consequently,rainfed agriculture is very risky whereas extensive cattle ranching predominates in termsof land use. Omaheke has some of the best grazing areas in the country. Inhabitants referto their region as “cattle country” and claim to produce the best beef in Namibia. Carryingcapacities range from 15 to 30 kg live mass per hectare or 12 to 24 ha per LSU. In the areaselected for this LaLR study, the carrying capacity is 12 ha per LSU (ibid.).In recent years, many commercial farmers have diversified out of agriculture into gamefarming, hunting and tourism activities such as running guest farms and lodges. No figuresare available for Omaheke to quantify the extent of this process, but anecdotal evidencesuggests that the increase in non-agricultural economic activities has been substantial inthe freehold farming sector. These non-agricultural activities complement incomes derivedfrom cattle farming.12“In general, the growing period is the time during a growing season when both air temperature and soilmoisture permit crop growth. The length of a growing period is formally defined as the number of daysduring which precipitation exceeds half the potential evapotranspiration, plus the number of days toevapo transpire an assumed 100mm … of water from excess precipitation.” (de Pauw and Coetzee 1999: 27)54 ● Livelihoods after land reform: Namibia country report (2010)