Aussenkehr’s Farmers: Out And Back Into Poverty

LET us not beat about the bush here.

The issue is not whether the small-scale farmers at Aussenkehr's State-owned Orange River Irrigation Project (ORIP) have failed. That is not what brought about steps to evict them. It is all about their resistance to being manipulated and hoodwinked into enriching a small group of individuals based in the offices of the Agriculture Ministry.
The grape farmers owe more than N$3 million to Agribank and Coolfresh - a service provider appointed by the Government to help the people produce and market their products abroad.
Coolfresh was appointed in 2009 by the Ministry of Agriculture after the previous service provider reportedly mismanaged the marketing of the grapes produced by the small-scale farmers.
Because of the mismanagement, the small-scale farmers were reportedly N$2,5 million in the red at Agribank and Coolfresh agreed to pay off that debt before taking over as service provider.
Coolfresh reportedly paid a total of N$1,5 million in June last year towards a portion of each farmer's debt but the remaining N$1 million was not paid over.
Coolfresh claimed the farmers violated their agreement with them and they could not continue to pay their debts.
According to the agreement the farmers were supposed to market their produce through Coolfresh alone. The ORIP farmers have reasons for bypassing the Dutch-owned Coolfresh. They claim the service provider is impoverishing them and monopolising their farming.
Coolfresh International reportedly discontinued the N$4 000 a month the farmers used to receive as part of their “advance payment” on their profits, but were still expected to pay for and use the services from Coolfresh Namibia, who asked for a five per cent surcharge on all services provided to the farmers.
They also accuse Coolfresh Namibia of keeping them in the dark on the particulars of their financial status, only providing basic forms stating income and expenditure, while leaving the farmers at the mercy of Coolfresh’s business decisions.
Coolfresh said they withdrew monthly payments from the farmers when they breached the contract by selling dates to another buyer.
The Ministry of Agriculture and Coolfresh subsequently came up with a tripartite agreement (which, by the way, the Ministry negotiated on behalf of the farmers instead of they themselves). The agreement gave total control of the farmers’ cash flow and business decisions to Coolfresh.
This means that the farmers who were empowered are now being disempowered.
This after Coolfresh was given the right to market their produce and failed to lift the people out of poverty.
As the new tripartite agreement stands now, it will only benefit Coolfresh and Agribank, whose debts will be paid off.
The farmers, however, claim that Coolfresh also owes them money for their produce and the Ministry of Agriculture is not moving an inch to help them recover those funds but instead hammers them for not paying Coolfresh and Agribank.
How can Coolfresh run the business side of ORIP while the farmers are supposed to take responsibility for their accounts? Why should Agribank threaten them when they know very well that Coolfresh takes all their profit and gives them peanuts as change. Their destiny is not in their own hands.
The big question thus is: to whose benefit is the Coolfresh deal? Why is Coolfresh claiming that the farmers are under training while the Ministry officials like Permanent Secretary Andrew Ndishishi regard them as masters of their own destiny? A debt of N$3 million among 20 farmers amounts to around N$150 000 which each one of them owes.
I am sure Agribank is owed bigger debts than that and Government has lost millions without taking such drastic steps against others.
While Ndishishi was at Trade as PS, N$100 million vanished without trace but nothing happened to call for his suspension.
I am not arguing that people who accumulate debts should not be traced and held accountable. No.
But nobody should be more equal than others and someone needs to start standing up for the rights of the farmers.
The group are just demanding their due on the basis that their produce is worth what they sell it for.
But people like Ndishishi, a regular at the election results centre after every five years with a brief hardly anybody knows about, are busy destroying the exact purposes for which ORIP was established - the empowerment of the people.
The end result of such action is the promotion of the growing unemployment problem.