Small-scale farmers and other community members at Aroab on Monday staged a peaceful demonstration calling on the Aroab Village Council to allocate more land to them for farming purposes.

About 17 small stock farmers currently farm on a piece of 5 000 hectares of land belonging to the village council, which they say is overcrowded as the number of farmers and animals has increased.

The group in their petition read by Benjamin Van Staden called on the council to allocate another 5 000 hectares of land to them in order to grow vegetables and start poultry, pig and livestock farming.

“We are 26 small farmers currently on the 5 000 hectares of land allocated to us and we cannot all farm in this space, that is why we want more land,” said Van Staden.

Van Staden said due to the economic pressure and the impact of COVID-19 the living conditions of the community of Aroab have become very difficult while the high unemployment among the community has led to criminal activities such as stock theft.

“The council is not using the land optimally while we are suffering in poverty, we want to use the land for the benefit of the less fortunate,” stressed the group.

The group gave the council seven days to respond to their petition while calling on the Minister of Agriculture, Water and Land Reform Calle Schletwein to intervene in the matter, saying all they want is the land to become self-sustainable.

Receiving the petition, the village council’s deputy chairperson, Andrew De Juy promised the group that their grievances will be addressed by council in the shortest period and a response will be provided to the group.

“I thank everyone here for standing put and expressing your democratic right, I assure you that we will look closely to this petition and respond to it,” he said.

Source: The Namibian Press Agency