In front of an iron corrugated shack in Havana squatter camp on the
outskirts of the capital, Windhoek, five women are sweating profusely.
Hour after hour they lift heavy sticks to pound mahangu, Namibia’s
staple food, in the baking sun. When one grows tired, a neighbour takes
over but the work never stops. A small amount for dinner takes forever
to grind. Let alone churning out large quantities for one of the many
open markets in the capital, as these women do for a living.
Johanna Kunalimwe sits in one of these markets in Okuruyangava. Baskets
with different grades of mahangu surround her. Those that are used as
ingredient for oshikundu, the traditional beer, look particularly
empty.
"People are complaining," she sighs, brandishing a cloth that is
alternately used to wipe beer containers and to fan herself. "The food
in the shops is too expensive, even basics like mealie meal. A bag is
easily $50 or $60 [Namibian] dollars."
Fifty Namibian dollars – five U.S. dollars – for a 10 kg sack of mealie
meal… in a country where the UNDP’s latest survey found 60 percent
live on less than two U.S. dollars a day, and the inhabitants of Havana
squatter camp are more likely to be in the 35 percent that survive on
less than a dollar.
So they buy at her stall, 50 U.S. cents for a tin of imported meal, 10 cents for a bag of spices.
The rest of the staple foods come from the north of the arid country.
Many families collectively work their mahangu fields and sell the
surplus to pay for clothes and school fees. Others will send it south
to their families in the squatter camps.
Although there are no official figures these transfers are an important
lifeline for the urban poor. Even after the government slashed the
Value Added Tax (VAT) on millet in 2003/2004 and last year again on
beans, cooking oil, fat, bread and cake flour.
But it is not enough. The temporary relief is overshadowed by food
prices that, according to the Namibian Economic Policy Research Unit
(NEPRU), have risen 17 percent year-on-year.
In the rural areas, continuous cycles of floods and droughts have
created a severe hunger gap towards the end of the dry season. Figures
from the World Food Programme (WFP) show that the malnutrition rate for
children under five is 29 percent.
The dissatisfaction with the food situation is widespread, but not
organised. "There are some soup kitchens, but that’s about it," says
Baton Osmani, country representative for WFP. "There is chronic food
insecurity in some areas that is compounded by shocks, such as floods."
Admir Bay, head of the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation mission
in the country, concurs. "There are pockets of poverty, but I wouldn’t
call it a serious situation. Every country wants to produce its own
food, but this is not always realistic. Namibia, as a middle income
country is in the fortunate position that it can import food."
And so it does. Two-thirds of Namibia’s food comes from neighbouring
South Africa. The high prices that come with imports are a hidden
humanitarian tragedy for the 30 percent that is classified as poor, or
severely poor.
"South Africa has its own problems," a commercial farmer on the Angolan
border told IPS. "If their exports are halted, we will literally
starve."
The government has responded with subsidies for dry land cropping and
irrigation schemes along the country’s few perennial rivers.
"There are many problems surrounding the green schemes," explains
Siegfried Engels, head of Mashare Irrigation Training Centre. "Some
seem to have completely failed, while others are still being built."
While he drives through the hectares of maize along the Okavango river,
around him hostels are constructed for the army of jobless and
landless. "Inputs have to come from government and often come too
late."
Basilia Shipepe is in charge of short courses for communal farmers at
Mashare. "This once was a thriving livestock breeding centre and a
research station for crops", she says. "Now there is nothing going on."
Disillusioned, she put in an application at the Ministry of Gender in
Windhoek. "After nine years I will finally be out of here."
The schemes work on a profit-sharing basis, with the government putting
in the infrastructure and commercial farmers getting a tender to farm
the project and incorporate emerging farmers. But rising input costs
have affected the schemes and when government altered the terms of the
agreement, some commercial farmers left for Botswana in disgust.
"This is a big problem," says Charity Mwiya of the Namibian Chamber of
Commerce. "We are working hard with the Ministry of Agriculture to
clear the air. There is no question that the country needs the private
sector to impart the knowledge and skills that are needed to beef up
the food production."
In 2005, the US Agency for International Development concluded that the
Kavango region, the hotspot for these initiatives, was littered with
failed development projects.
Inter Press Service (IPS)
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