The merging of the ministries of fisheries and agriculture underscored the government’s commitment to growing the primary industries. 

Added to this is another vital ministry – that of land reform. 

Combined, the ‘merger’ places agriculture at the centre of focus as a formidable industry. 

This is because the Namibian agricultural sector directly and indirectly impacts about 70% of the country’s population. 

Namibia is a net exporter of high-value fruits, such as grapes, dates and blueberries, livestock products, such as beef, chevon and mutton/lamb, as well as processed and unprocessed fish such as hake, horse mackerel, mackerel, kingklip, orange rafie, tuna and sardines. 

These products are exported to international markets such as the European Union, the Middle East, the United States of America, China, the Southern African Development Community and others. 

These industries are very lucrative and expected to grow substantially in the near future, with an increased focus on value addition and agro processing. 

Namibia is also renowned for having some of the best beef in the world. 

It became the first African country to export beef to China, the EU and the US, marking a significant milestone in its agricultural industry. 

This spells the importance of the agriculture sector.

When people think about agriculture, they tend to think about farmers, tending the fields, looking after crops or livestock. 

You may be thinking you do not want to be a farmer, so agriculture is not for you. But think again.

Agriculture is not just about farming. It has an enormous range of career opportunities, including in plant sciences, technology, the food sector and more.  

The number and type of employers looking for new workers are vast. 

The massive food and drink sector rests on the backbone of the farming sector, which means in agriculture, there are jobs for everything in between the farm and the store. 

There is also a large agri-supply industry, which specialises in selling inputs, including seeds, fertiliser and machinery, to farmers. 

All of these need research and development teams, creative marketers, digital experts and so on. 

There is a job waiting for you in the agricultural sector, no matter what your skills are.

The population is growing exponentially, and this means more food is needed. 

One of the biggest problems in today’s society is knowing how we will feed them tomorrow. 

A huge part of the agricultural sector is devoted to solving this problem. 

If you are part of it, you may well be making history.

No other group of people have shown the real potential of the agriculture sector than communal farmers north of the Veterinary Cordon Fence (VCF), infamously known as the red line. 

The manner in which these farmers have worked to create a market for the products in spite of the restrictions that come with the red line is commendable.  

Operating north of the red line means that none of your products as a farmer may leave the area, which means all that is produced in that region should be consumed and used strictly there.  

This may sound ordinary to those south of the red line, but to farmers north of this problematic divide, it is a daily hardship they have had to contend with. 

It is a fact that the area south of the red line is more lucrative in prices, especially for livestock.

 Farmers in the Northern Communal Areas (NCA) are denied such privilege. 

But what is encouraging is that these farmers have refused to lie down. 

They worked hard to have a market that would save their products, which would have been otherwise rendered useless in the absence of a market.

Through such gallant effort, they have managed to eke out a life for themselves by being able to sell off some of their products. 

This is, of course, notwithstanding the fact that they would be getting much more for their products if it were not for the politics of the red line. This is a story worth writing home about. 

It is a story about people who determined their own fate by making lemonade out of the countless lemons thrown at them. 

The prices might not be great, but they have been sustaining the farmers. 

In fact, at times, the margin between the price of a goat south of the VCF and that of one in the NCA is very thin. 

This is a story of hope, indeed.

On the horticulture and agronomy side, it is indeed a blooming affair, ripe with opportunities at every turn of the way. 

The number of fresh produce harvested in this area has been encouraging, and so has the response of the customers to their farmers’ offerings. 

It is simple economics at play.

 The farmer fills the gap by supplying much-needed products in response to a high demand for them from the residents. Stories of young city dwellers returning to the cities with bags of mahangu from the very fields of their farming parents are not unusual. 

Such stories give hope to the country’s quest to encourage the production of its own food. 

If those in the NCA can feed themselves and sell their livestock among themselves, what is stopping the whole country from doing so?

Perhaps we could all take a leaf out of the NCA farmers’ book and emulate what has been working for them. 

We should do so by asking ourselves if we, as a country, will be able to survive if our borders are sealed off for imports.

Granted, this has exactly been the situation for farmers north of the VCF. They have been barricaded in the dry and often flood-prone oshanas, rocky mountains and sandy areas of the NCA from Kunene to Zambezi. 

While part of Namibia, they unfortunately had to deal with being an economy on its own by way of the current restrictions on exports from the area.

“Otjina otjiwa tjihorerwa, katjitirwa eruru”, says the Ovaherero.

 Loosely translated, it means “A good thing should be replicated, and not shunned”. 

Let us study the model of the NCA farmers and put it to use.