Martin Nambundunga, a youthful part-time crop and horticulture commercial farmer in the Okahandja district, is living his dream.
Nambundunga is a driller by profession, who started farming a year ago.
He was motivated to undertake farming by one of his clients, a local farmer for whom he drilled boreholes on their farm.
After engaging with a handful of farmers, he acquired an 800-hectare piece of land, of which he cleared 50 hectares and drilled seven boreholes. Currently, Nambundunga produces Kale (that happens to be popular amongst his clients), red onions, tomatoes, yellow and white maize, and sunflowers.
“I recall asking a farmer once why he was growing over 5 000 tomatoes, and the farmer said to me that fishing companies need the tomatoes to produce tin fish. Being in the field and seeing what my clients (farmers) were doing inspired me to start my farming journey,” he said.
When asked about his challenges during his farming journey, Nambundunga said in the early days of his journey, he relied very much on his farm manager and employees.
As result, he could not make time to research on crop and horticulture production.
However, after his first production loss due to frost, he took accountability of his losses, and made it a point to acquire the much-needed knowledge to become the successful farmer he currently is.
“I was not hands-on when I started farming because I hired an experienced person. I loved the idea of farming. However, I did not make enough effort to learn the important stuff. There is a lot of farming material that one can watch on YouTube.
Even Agribank shares a lot of farming materials and even hosts training sessions,” he stated.
Talking about his best experiences in his farming journey, Nambundunga said watching his produce grow, harvesting, packaging and selling them himself to his target market in Ovitoto and Okahandja was very fulfilling for him.
He also goes an extra mile to take his produce to his target market.
He added that farming contributed significantly to his character-building as farming made him a better planner, improved his budgeting skills, but above all, he learned the differences between time and effort.
“Start small and scale up. Make use of what you have at your disposal. If you are waiting for the perfect condition to get started, you will never get to start. You can even start planting vegetable crops in your backyard. If you are venturing into farming for the first time, focus on learning first. It is important to learn how plants and animals behave,” Nambundunga advised.
-Agribank