By Deon Schlechter
WINDHOEK – The recently launched Management and Leadership cc training calendar for farmers continued with another workshop towards the end of April and will start with new courses in May to empower people to put food on their own plates and on the plates of others.
The training programme, brainchild of Dr Hoze Riruako, the company’s Managing Director, is to ensure that Namibian rural and communal farmers equip themselves to become better producers. Dr Riruako says his company’s training is aimed at Namibians who do not have the necessary education to further their studies in the field of agriculture. He adds that at the heart of all this lies food security – an area where Namibians still have plenty to do to ensure food security at all times. He says many of the most important lessons learned from life start with a simple idea that provides huge benefits to many people. “Our core training is one such an idea, and we maintain it is vitally important to teach Namibians more about things they know best, like farming. We have not tapped into nearly all our resources in the agricultural sector, and one way of doing this is to train farmers properly and equip them with the tools to become better producers in the livestock and agronomy sectors. With proper skills and the know-how of how to run a farm as a business, these farmers would be able to employ jobless people and turn their farming into a profitable business,” he believes.
In April the attention was shifted to strategic leadership development training as well as Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) training, corporate governance, good governance, diplomatic training, protocol and etiquette intelligence, farm management and mentoring and couching. “Once the attendants have achieved their goals by proper training, they will be able to feed themselves and with that knowledge and empowerment, they will be able to feed others. Namibians need to learn how to help themselves first in order to help others,” he stresses.
Armed with the knowledge from the ground-braking training of the past two months, Dr Riruako says farmers can become trainers of others in their various regions by sharing the important information they have gathered. “This will arm them with skills designed for their very own environment and improve on their performance and bring the results they have been wishing for,” he says.
The programme will be extended to most regions, stretching from the drought-stricken Kunene region all the way south to Mariental. He says the training and transport of people to the regions cost money urging local governments and other role players to join in on the effort that will see farmers being trained until the end of October this year. As part of the first training programme, farmers visited the Hardap region last month to witness crop farming on a commercial scale. The trainees will also visit the Omaheke region to learn about crop farming, livestock farming and dairy farming.