Food security begins with valuing those who feed ss

There is something we need to talk about honestly in Namibia: who feeds us?

We often talk about food security as though it simply means having enough food in the shops.

It is much more than that.

Food security means having the people, skills, land, water and resources to produce food for ourselves.

And that means we need to start valuing the people who do it.

Namibia has never really made farming an attractive or exciting profession for young people.

We need to change that.

We need to make farming sexy.

Not fashionable. Not romantic. Important.

The farmer should be seen as a professional, an entrepreneur, a businessperson, a custodian of the land and one of the people upon whom our survival depends.

A farmer should be able to say with pride: “I feed Namibia.”

The same applies to our fishermen and women.

We have an enormous ocean on our doorstep, rich in marine life.

Fishing is one of Namibia’s great natural assets.

Yet we must continually ask whether enough of that wealth is finding its way onto the plates of Namibians and into the lives of the communities that depend upon it.

Our food story should therefore include the land and the sea.

It should include the farmer, the farm worker, the fisherman, the food processor and the small producer.

Namibia also needs to rethink what we mean by farming.

We cannot simply keep increasing cattle numbers and hope the land and water will somehow cope.

Namibia is a dry country.

Drought reminds us brutally that there are limits to what our land can carry.

We need more diversity.

We need vegetables, fruit, grains and indigenous crops.

We need cattle where cattle make sense, but also goats, sheep, poultry and fish.

We need aquaculture. We need greenhouses and better irrigation.

We need to use technology and water intelligently.

And we need to produce more of the food that Namibians actually eat.

There is something particularly uncomfortable about importing large quantities of basic food while our own farmers struggle to make a living.

The answer is not simply to tell farmers to produce more.

We have to make it worthwhile.

A farmer who cannot make a decent return will eventually stop farming.

A young person who sees no future in agriculture will choose another career.

A farm worker who cannot earn a decent living will understandably look elsewhere.

If we want food security, agriculture must provide dignity as well as food.

We should also protect the foundations of our food system: our land, our water, our fish stocks, our agricultural knowledge and our seeds.

The seed is where the food system begins.

We should have the ability to preserve and develop our own seeds and agricultural resources rather than becoming completely dependent on others.

This is not about turning our backs on the rest of the world.

It is about becoming more capable of standing on our own feet.

Namibia has farmers.

We have fishermen and women.

We have land. We have an ocean.

We have young people who need meaningful work.

What we have lacked is the national determination to bring these resources together and give agriculture and fishing the status they deserve.

It is time to change that.

The people who feed Namibia should not be treated as people on the margins of our economy.

They should be recognised as central to our future.

If we truly want food security, let us begin by giving the farmer and the fisher something they have always deserved: Respect, opportunity and the knowledge that what they do matters to every Namibian

Food Security Begins With Valuing the Farmer

Namibia needs to change the way it thinks about farming.

We have never really made farming attractive to our young people.

We have never properly told our farmers that they are among the most important people in the country.

Yet without farmers, there is no food. Without food, there is no real independence.

All farmers should be proud to say: “I feed Namibia.”

And Namibia should be proud to say: “We value the people who feed us.”

Today, we import far too much of what we eat.

The Namibian Agronomic Board reported that in 2024/25 Namibia imported about N$681 million worth of horticultural products, while locally purchased production was about N$391 million.

We continue to import large amounts of potatoes, apples, bananas, oranges and other foods that, where our climate and water allow, we should be producing ourselves.

This should be a major cause for alarm for all of us today.

It is not simply an agricultural problem. It is a national-security problem.

What happens when the countries supplying our food have droughts, floods, political problems, transport problems or decide that their own people must come first?

We cannot build a secure country while depending so heavily on somebody else to feed us.

In other words t food security does not mean simply producing more cattle.

Namibia is a dry country. Water is precious. In some areas we have too many cattle for the land and water available, and when drought comes, animals suffer and die. We have to become smarter about what we produce and where we produce it.

We need more attention on vegetables, fruit, indigenous crops, grains, goats, sheep, poultry, aquaculture, protected farming and other forms of agriculture suited to Namibia.

We need better irrigation where it makes sense, better water management and much more food processing inside the country.

Most importantly, we need to make farming a respected and attractive profession.

Young Namibians should see farming as a business opportunity, not as a punishment.

They should see modern farms using technology, science, irrigation, greenhouses, better seeds, machinery and new ideas.

And the people who work on those farms must be paid properly.

We cannot say farmers and farm workers are essential to Namibia while expecting them to live in poverty.

If we want people to enter agriculture, stay in agriculture and become skilled in agriculture, they must be able to build decent lives from their work.

There is another issue we cannot ignore: seeds.

The seed is where our food system begins.

Namibia must develop the ability to protect, save, breed and multiply its own agricultural seeds and genetic resources.

We should not become permanently dependent on foreign companies or foreign countries for the ability to grow our own food.

This is about sovereignty.

It is also about respect.

We need a new national attitude towards agriculture. We need to make farming sexy, modern, respected and profitable.

Not because farming is fashionable.

Because farming is essential.

The farmer is not somebody standing outside the modern economy.

The farmer is at the centre of it.

If Namibia wants food security, we must start by valuing the people who produce our food.

And if we want to remain a sovereign nation, we must eventually be able to answer one simple question:

Can Namibia feed itself?

Tehuti Raa, Social Scientist & Clitoral Activist

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