Bumper harvest for grape farmers at Aussenkehr

THE small-scale irrigation of the Orange River Irrigation Project (Orip) will yield huge returns for their produce this year after seven less successful years because of interim cost-cutting mechanisms.

The cost-cutting measures, which include the withdrawal of farmers’ N$4 000 monthly allowances, and reducing the number of casual workers from four to two, were put in place in March this year.

Petrus Uugwanga, managing director of Agribusdev that oversees the green scheme irrigation projects, revealed this when he briefed the farmers about the proceeds on Monday at Aussenkehr.

In 2001 the farmers entered into a three-year training agreement with the government, and the Namibia Development Corporation (NDC) trained them to set up grape vineyards on 700-hectare state-owned land at Aussenkehr.

After the training, each farmer was supposed to sign a 99-year lease agreement, but this did not materialise.

The farmers, instead, signed a five-year lease agreement in 2009. Initially, 20 farmers signed the lease agreement to use the state-owned plots each measuring 80 hectares.

However, the government terminated 10 lease agreements after the farmers had sold their produce directly to grape buyers.

In 2015 Agribusdev took over the management of the plots when the government terminated an agreement with Cool Fresh Namibia to render marketing and plantation services to the small-scale farmers.

The government later pulled out of the agreement after Cool Fresh failed to honour farmers’ loan accounts with AgriBank.

Uugwanga told the farmers that Agribusdev achieved a 40% reduction in production, adding this will result in them making yields from their produce this year after a profit drought of seven years.

“Thanks to the interim cost-cutting measures, we saved over a million dollar on production costs this year,” he stated.

Uugwanga chastised the farmers for sending SMSes to newspapers, complaining that they “feel oppressed” by the government as they do not get a penny from their produce.

He asked them whether claims of being oppressed was the view of all farmers, adding: “we should not fool ourselves”.

“You have a culture of sending SMSes to the President. Why are we not respecting our own company and farm? Why would you call the President to come to the farm?” he said angrily, advising the farmers that there are internal structures through which they can air their grievances.

“You are the only small-scale farmers out of the 130 experiencing oppression.The worse is that there is no genuine case for you to cry foul. This year’s results speak volumes. We have doubled or tripled the production output.,” Uugwanga further fumed.

He challenged the farmers to do the “honourable thing” and pull out of the lease agreements if they still feel oppressed while noting that the yields projected for this year was the beginning of reform at Orip.

Small-scale farmer Benzi Tjavira said the interim measures, especially the withdrawal of their monthly allowances, had adversely affected them.

“You have made us slaves, we haven’t received a single cent from our produce since March this year,” he retorted.

He argued that the lease agreement is only on paper as farmers have been excluded from managing their plots.

The small farmers also denied having sent SMSes to the newspapers, and complained their debts with AgriBank was escalating although money from their earnings was deducted to pay off their loan account debts.

Uugwanga pledged to the farmers that Agribusdev as part of the Orip reform plan will focus on paying off their AgriBank loan accounts.

“Our priority is to settle your loan accounts with AgriBank,” he added.

Orip project manager Simon Akwenye revealed that each farmer could expect returns of N$288 000 from this year’s harvest, adding each of them has incurred production cost of N$126 777 between April and October this year.

Last year, he said, farmers received average returns of N$93 000, which was not even enough to cover their production costs.

This, he added, resulted in poor yielding results regarding product quality and volumes.

Silverlands Vineyards predicts a bumper crop, despite a late start to the harvesting season.