People, animals go hungry in Kunene
The governor of Kunene plans to discuss the possibility of drought relief with the prime minister.
Many inhabitants of the Kunene Region have flocked to regional council offices to ask for food aid and drought relief for their livestock.
Regional governor Marius Sheya is advising farmers to sell some of their livestock as the prolonged drought there continues.
In an interview with Namibian Sun yesterday, Sheya said there was no sign of rain in the region yet and farmers were worried about the condition of their livestock.
“We have not yet reached a situation where many livestock are dying, but in our engagements with farmers they are all complaining about drought and when we visit their farms it is clear that the situation is not good,” Sheya said.
“This makes me fear that we might experience a serious drought. The condition of livestock is not good at all. Farmers need to sell some of their livestock in order to buy feed for the rest.”
Sheya said most farmers in the arid region are exclusively livestock producers and that is problematic.
He urged farmers to explore other farming alternatives such as crop production so that the region could become self-sustaining.
“We need to divert from the traditional way of farming and diversify in other areas of farming. We can also look at crop production as another way of living. There are plenty of opportunities in the region.
“The areas of Sesfontein and Fransfontein have a lot of groundwater and we need to establish Green Scheme projects there,” he said.
“We are experiencing hunger among livestock and human beings alike and we import everything from outside the region. There are no livestock feed producers in the region while there are many livestock.
“We are just concentrating on the number of livestock we have, but we are not looking at ways on how to maintain them,” he said.
He added that the regional government planned to meet with the prime minister to appeal for drought relief.
Sheya said the food bank programme was taking care of the needy at Opuwo and Khorixas but outside these towns people were suffering.
“Community members are really affected by drought and they are in need of food. Since our people are only in livestock farming and they are not producing food, drought relief is the only solution.
“We already have a list of people who have flocked to regional councillors' offices in need of food,” Sheya said.
“In our region we also need a project to harvest rainwater. We would like to ask the environmental fund to look at this opportunity because each year we receive good rainfall but it only lasts for a few months then we are faced with a lack of water for our livestock,” he added.
ILENI NANDJATO
Regional governor Marius Sheya is advising farmers to sell some of their livestock as the prolonged drought there continues.
In an interview with Namibian Sun yesterday, Sheya said there was no sign of rain in the region yet and farmers were worried about the condition of their livestock.
“We have not yet reached a situation where many livestock are dying, but in our engagements with farmers they are all complaining about drought and when we visit their farms it is clear that the situation is not good,” Sheya said.
“This makes me fear that we might experience a serious drought. The condition of livestock is not good at all. Farmers need to sell some of their livestock in order to buy feed for the rest.”
Sheya said most farmers in the arid region are exclusively livestock producers and that is problematic.
He urged farmers to explore other farming alternatives such as crop production so that the region could become self-sustaining.
“We need to divert from the traditional way of farming and diversify in other areas of farming. We can also look at crop production as another way of living. There are plenty of opportunities in the region.
“The areas of Sesfontein and Fransfontein have a lot of groundwater and we need to establish Green Scheme projects there,” he said.
“We are experiencing hunger among livestock and human beings alike and we import everything from outside the region. There are no livestock feed producers in the region while there are many livestock.
“We are just concentrating on the number of livestock we have, but we are not looking at ways on how to maintain them,” he said.
He added that the regional government planned to meet with the prime minister to appeal for drought relief.
Sheya said the food bank programme was taking care of the needy at Opuwo and Khorixas but outside these towns people were suffering.
“Community members are really affected by drought and they are in need of food. Since our people are only in livestock farming and they are not producing food, drought relief is the only solution.
“We already have a list of people who have flocked to regional councillors' offices in need of food,” Sheya said.
“In our region we also need a project to harvest rainwater. We would like to ask the environmental fund to look at this opportunity because each year we receive good rainfall but it only lasts for a few months then we are faced with a lack of water for our livestock,” he added.
ILENI NANDJATO
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