By Deon Schlechter
WINDHOEK – The DHR Management and Leadership Expert cc championed and chartered new frontiers in the area of agriculture last week by paving the way for others to emulate during a very successful four-day workshop.
This was on the key areas of dairy farming and agronomy production. The event introduced the closed corporation’s very busy national training programme for 2014 that will last until October. Training of this nature goes a long way in complementing the government’s efforts to reach Vision 2030’s noble goals and objectives, Minister of Agriculture, Water and Forestry, John Mutorwa said at the opening of a workshop. The training so provided, further complements and strengthens efforts of tertiary institutions such as the University of Namibia (Unam), the Polytechnic of Namibia, the International University of Management (IUM) and Vocational Training Centres (VTCs) by providing training to those who are not able to join such institutions. This training also assists those who are practically already in farming and those who inspire to join the agricultural sector.
The scope of the training will widen considerably in April when the DHR calendar will focus on strategic leadership development, SME training, corporate governance, good governance, diplomatic training, protocol and etiquette intelligence, farm management and mentoring and couching.
Agriculture is the backbone and the barometre of the Namibian economy, since it employs the majority of Namibians directly and indirectly. Therefore, an investment in agriculture will necessarily help to reduce the burden of unemployment, whilst at the same time, compliments government efforts to ensure food security. Armed with these new found technical know-how and skills, participants of and in this training workshop, are poised to improve their farming efforts, thereby ensuring better yields. The training of small scale and rural farmers in the basic skills of Conservation Agriculture has already yielded exceptional results, and those attending the workshop praised the organisers of the initiative. Following last week’s training, focusing on agriculture, subsequent training in areas of agriculture will also be provided by DHR Management & Leadership Expert cc in the coming months. This includes Farm Management, Aqua Culture, Abattoir/ Meat Production and Poultry to mention just a few.
In May the focus will be on how to develop a strategic business plan, how to develop the business plan, IT training, industrial relations, customer care/service, managing tenders and project management. After that, the training will commence in June with emphasis on drafting and implementation of a budget, financial tracking, tax returns, financial management and preparing financial statements. In July, the spotlight will be on dairy farming production, agronomy production, farm management and training in abattoir and meat production as well as poultry production. In August courses in strategic leadership and SME will be conducted and in September the training done in May wil, be repeated. In September, the courses completed in June will be repeated.