Namibia country report

Water infrastructure problems were severe at Sekretarispan resettlement farm, Hardap.Selling all their livestock at the onset of a drought does not appear to be a universallyaccepted strategy among AALS farmers, as Godfrey’s testimony suggests. His first responseto drought was to look for opportunities to hire grazing in the region. In addition, he boughtfodder, lick and grass, financing these purchases by selling those cattle whose conditionwas still reasonably good. The practice of many established commercial farmers of sellinglivestock at the onset of drought, banking the money and then purchasing livestock againafter the drought was foreign to him. He argued that he kept cattle, not money. The reasonfor his thinking that selling all livestock due to drought is not a good idea is that a farmerneeds cash after the drought. Selling all his livestock and banking the money would meanrunning the risk of having used half of the money when the time is right for buying newlivestock.Significantly, while Godfrey stated that he does not take his livestock to graze in the adjacentcommunal area because he cannot control his livestock there, at the same time he saidthat during a very bad drought it is much easier to farm in a communal area than on acommercial farm, and likewise it would be much easier for him to graze his livestock in thecommunal area. The reason for this is that even though commercial farms, including hisown farm, have several camps which enable the farmers to practise rotational grazing andsave some grazing for drought periods, the livestock are limited to grazing within the campor farm boundaries, whereas communal areas have the advantage that livestock can grazewherever they find something to eat.Livelihoods Section after B ● 4. Land Affirmative Reform: Namibia Action Loan country Scheme report (AALS) (2010) ● 71