Farmer dreams of a place to call home

Ruben Dausab is staring down eviction by government from the only home his family has known for more than a decade, and he has nowhere else to go.

The 64-year-old farmer, his wife and their four children face being forced off land along a TransNamib railway corridor where they have farmed livestock and vegetables, buried their dead and built a life since being pushed off a commercial farm in 2013.

“We do everything on this farm, not to sell but to survive,” Dausab told Windhoek Express during a recent visit.

Dausab was born and raised in the area and worked for more than 35 years as a farm employee.

After being evicted from Farm Okondura Nord 13 years ago, he moved with his family and livestock to the TransNamib railway corridor between Orutjiva and Ongombombero, No. 17 and 20 and Okasise.

What was meant to be temporary has stretched into more than a decade. His family now farms cattle, sheep, goats, pigs and chickens, while his wife and children maintain a backyard garden.

Dausab also harvests honey from bee colonies that have settled on his land. He has installed boreholes and fencing to help sustain the family.

He says the family has more than 100 cattle and 180 sheep, livestock that represents both their livelihood and their only means of survival. Behind the numbers is a family history that Dausab says cannot simply be uprooted. He told Windhoek Express he now pays N$80 per head per month to keep his cattle and sheep on the farm, adding another financial burden to a family already struggling to secure a permanent place to live and farm.

Windhoek Express accompanied him on a visit to the graves of his elderly relatives who were buried on the land.

“Our parents and forefathers are buried here. This is the only place that we have to call home,” he said.

Evicted, but with no place to go

Dausab's story is rooted in generations of farm work. He says he worked for his previous employer for more than 35 years before he was eventually forced into the corridor.

For years, he applied for a government resettlement farm, but his applications produced no result.

A letter from the then land reform ministry, dated 11 October 2016, acknowledged his request for resettlement assistance and expressed sympathy for his situation. The ministry explained that thousands of applications were competing for limited resettlement opportunities and advised Dausab to continue applying when farms were advertised. Another document shows that TransNamib had previously granted Dausab permission to use a railway reserve at Okasize Station for crop production, pending the finalisation of a lease agreement. For Dausab, those documents are evidence that his family did not simply arrive on the land without explanation. Yet his circumstances have now changed dramatically.

In February, lawyers acting for the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries, Water and Land Reform issued Dausab and Maria Dausas and six others with a letter of demand concerning their occupation of Government Resettlement Farm Orutjiva No. 17 in the Otjozondjupa Region. The ministry maintains that they are illegally occupying the land.

The ministry has demanded that Dausab and his family vacate the land with their livestock, belongings, workers and other occupants, warning that failure to comply could result in High Court proceedings. Dausab does not dispute that he has remained on the land.

On uncertain ground

Life in the corridor has come at a heavy price.

Dausab says he has lost livestock in road accidents, placing both his animals and motorists at risk. During the drought, he has also lost reproductive animals because of inadequate water.

His pension, received after his years as a commercial farm employee, is not enough to support his family. The family continues farming not as a commercial luxury, he says, but simply to survive.

They even have a system of communication that reflects the harsh reality of their life in the corridor. Dausab says they use stones to signal the severity of problems. When the big stone is raised, the problems are serious. When a smaller stone is used, the situation is less severe.

Dausab and his wife have four boys, while Dausab has four other girls.

Dausab believes government, as custodian of land, should make provision for vulnerable and generational farm workers instead of forcing them from one corridor to another.

He argues that when farms are acquired by government, the circumstances of former farm workers who have lived and worked on those farms should be considered, including the existence of family graves and established livelihoods.

He wants government to recognise the circumstances of people like him, former farm workers who have spent their productive years on commercial farms and who, after losing their employment, have nowhere to establish themselves. He argues that eviction letters alone will not resolve the underlying problem.

“Where are we to go?” he asks.