Kunene farmers to get govt support

Kunene farmers to get govt support The government is considering embarking on a N$30 million communal land development programme for the perennially drought-stricken Kunene Region.

This was recently announced by land reform minister Utoni Nujoma when he introduced the Programme for Communal Land Development (PCLD) to stakeholders in Opuwo.

The programme is intended to improve tenure security, planning, develop infrastructure that supports commercial farming activities, provide advisory services and to enhance the capacity of the ministry of land reform to fulfil its communal land management mandate.

The PCLD receives funding from the government, Namibia German Technical Cooperation and the European Union.

The Kunene PLCD will support the ongoing registration of communal land rights and spatial planning of land uses in Kunene through the Integrated Regional Land Use Planning (IRLUP) process.

The PCLD will also support investment planning (Local Level Participatory Plans (LLPP) of areas prioritised under the PCLD for tenure and infrastructure development, support beneficiaries in management and farming capacities in the prioritised

areas.

Through the PCLD support can be given to individual farmers as well as groups of people and there is no stipulation of farm sizes.

The support is given for any land-based production systems such as cattle, wildlife, crop farming or high-value plants. The programme will also fund the establishment of boreholes to enhance rangeland management.

“Local people are the primary beneficiaries, no displacement of legitimate occupants is envisaged,” Nujoma emphasised in his presentation.

Beneficiaries are required to manage and maintain infrastructure, which becomes part of the contractual agreement. Advisory service for beneficiaries is provided to ensure sustainable management and to advance the notion of commercialisation of land-based economic activities.

Nujoma suggested possible land tenure systems for communal land development such as blocks of individual farms, village cattle posts or community areas and commonage.

“These models or a combination of them could apply in Kunene,” he said during the presentation.

Nujoma emphasised that his ministry was established in 1990 to respond to the land question saying the ministry has a mandate to redistribute land and address the socio-economic and political imbalances surrounding the land question.

Through the land reform the ministry developed and implemented various interventions through programmes and projects to respond to the skewed land ownership and lack of its access by most Namibians.

Nujoma stressed that the PCLD is one intervention under the land reform programme to deal with equitable land distribution.

FRED GOEIEMAN