Agribank educates on agricultural cooperatives
Making way for agricultural growth in Namibia
An agricultural cooperative is focused on community mobilisation and forms part of organised agriculture.
Cooperatives are needed to give communities access to developmental initiatives that exist.
Cooperatives are associations established by groups of farmers and community residents for a common objective. Members voluntarily join these institutions to benefit from services provided by these cooperatives.
Regional branch manager of Agribank’s Midland branch, Kamaau Nandova, said cooperatives are not new concepts, they exist and are established associations both in the African region and globally.
"The unfortunate thing is that Namibia went through political hardships where we depended more on South Africa to manage and control our cooperatives. This happened until Namibia received its independence and amended the ordinal used to govern the cooperatives. This body functions within the Ministry of Agriculture, Water and Land Reform," he said.
Nandova said cooperatives are made up of voluntary memberships with a minimum of seven members who all have equal rights in decision making.
The podcast highlighted that when cooperatives are established, they participate actively in food production, crop production, irrigation and other agricultural activities.
Agricultural cooperatives in Namibia
Although only 146 cooperatives were registered in Namibia in 2016, Nandova says there is a need to mobilise communities in order to join cooperatives.
"I strongly believe that due to the limited resources we have as a country, the accessibility to resources and finances is limited. By organising ourselves within cooperatives, we can empower the disadvantaged and less privileged. This allows us to further eradicate poverty especially when we live in a country where the unemployment rate skyrockets one way to significantly address that gap is through the establishments of cooperatives," he said.
Cooperatives are needed to give communities access to developmental initiatives that exist.
Cooperatives are associations established by groups of farmers and community residents for a common objective. Members voluntarily join these institutions to benefit from services provided by these cooperatives.
Regional branch manager of Agribank’s Midland branch, Kamaau Nandova, said cooperatives are not new concepts, they exist and are established associations both in the African region and globally.
"The unfortunate thing is that Namibia went through political hardships where we depended more on South Africa to manage and control our cooperatives. This happened until Namibia received its independence and amended the ordinal used to govern the cooperatives. This body functions within the Ministry of Agriculture, Water and Land Reform," he said.
Nandova said cooperatives are made up of voluntary memberships with a minimum of seven members who all have equal rights in decision making.
The podcast highlighted that when cooperatives are established, they participate actively in food production, crop production, irrigation and other agricultural activities.
Agricultural cooperatives in Namibia
Although only 146 cooperatives were registered in Namibia in 2016, Nandova says there is a need to mobilise communities in order to join cooperatives.
"I strongly believe that due to the limited resources we have as a country, the accessibility to resources and finances is limited. By organising ourselves within cooperatives, we can empower the disadvantaged and less privileged. This allows us to further eradicate poverty especially when we live in a country where the unemployment rate skyrockets one way to significantly address that gap is through the establishments of cooperatives," he said.
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