Africa-Press – Namibia. Kunene regional heads of government departments, traditional leaders, community members and members of the regional council met with the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Poverty Eradication, Labour and Industrial Relations on Monday to discuss various projects in the region.
The meeting focused on challenges with implementing the initiatives and explored ways to improve them, including identifying new opportunities.
Projects that were discussed included agricultural support programmes, sustainable farming practices and manufacturing projects related to tourism and conservation.
Kunene’s Agricultural Scientific Officer Ngujama Tjirora spoke about various government subsidies and projects managed by the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries, Water and Land Reform through the Directorate of Agriculture Production, Extension and Engineering Services (DAPEES).
He said these initiatives, which include goat distribution, green schemes and chicken projects, are designed to help farmers recover from drought.
Tjirora said small-scale farmers receive goats to enhance their resilience against drought.
“Each farmer is given 21 goats and one buck, which they can farm for tree years. After this period, the government will collect 10 goats to distribute to other farmers. It is a rotation programme designed to allow all deserving farmers to benefit,” he stated.
Tjirora said 96 farmers have benefitted so far, comprising 31 females and 60 males.
In total, 2 016 goats have been distributed in the Kunene region.
The programme is, however, hindered by various challenges, including a lack of vehicle support to assess, control, visit and observe what is happening on the ground.
Ephraim Nekongo, a member of the committee, advised the project heads to find a competitive market to allow the project to grow into an effective large-scale programme instead of focusing on small-scale efforts year after year.
He stated that such projects should be tracked with follow-ups and assessments to evaluate their true effectiveness.
“These projects should grow and become more dependable. We need to move from small-scale to medium now,” he added.
Other projects under the horticulture department include backyard gardens, poultry support subsidies and the recent ploughing service, where all constituencies were provided with eight tractors.
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