Namibia country report

4.3 Typology of livelihood strategies in relationto land reformMost full-time AALS farmers in Hardap and Omaheke appeared to be focusing on landbasedlivelihood strategies involving livestock production. In the usually arid western partsof Hardap, AALS farmers tend to farm only with small stock, i.e. sheep and/or goats, whereasthe pattern of higher rainfall in the eastern parts of the region enable farmers there tofarm with both large and small stock, i.e. cattle as well as sheep and/or goats. In Omahekethe full-time farmers focus predominantly on farming with large livestock as a land-basedlivelihood strategy. Some combine large-stock production with small-stock production.Livestock production for part-time farmers in both regions is similar to that of full-timefarmers. However, part-time farmers seem to have an advantage over full-time farmers inthat they are employed elsewhere, e.g. by the government, and therefore earn additionalmoney which they can use to cover operational costs on the farm.4.4 Livelihood trajectoriesThe majority of AALS farmers have one thing in common, i.e. they had previously farmed inone or more communal areas. Virtually all of them have experienced communal farmingin one way or another before buying their own farm, whether growing up in a communalarea and witnessing farming practices there or farming themselves in a communal area.As indicated earlier, 60% of all the AALS farmers interviewed stated that they had appliedfor an AALS loan because they wanted to get out of the communal areas. The main reasonsfor this were that their livestock herds had grown too big for communal land, and relatedto this, they were not able to exercise any control over their own livestock on communalland.While AALS farmers have much in common in terms of farming origins, their life histories,personal experiences and therefore their development paths as farmers are dissimilar.The livelihood trajectories (or pathways) discussed in this section have been formulated inorder to categorise the development paths of AALS farmers in an attempt to understandthe different paths better.Based on its findings and observations on the AALS in Hardap and Omaheke, the researchteam developed four livelihood trajectories pertaining to AALS farmers. The first is the‘ideal’ trajectory, which reflects the ideal development path for a farmer under the AALS.This trajectory corresponds closely to the AALS policy objectives. Because personal andfarming experiences hardly ever accord with what is considered ideal, it was necessaryto capture deviations from the ideal, hence the ‘cyclical’, ‘part-time’ and ‘broekskeur envasbyt’ trajectories. There is also an ‘expansionist’ trajectory, which represents the aspirationsof most AALS farmers, but none of them has achieved it as yet, so it is not discussed inthis report.72 ● Livelihoods after land reform: Namibia country report (2010)