First auction held at Talismanus auction kraal

The newly constructed Talismanus livestock marketing auction kraal, with the capacity to hold 1 500 livestock, was officially inaugurated on Thursday. The kraal aims to improve livestock offtake in the Otjombinde Constituency in the Omaheke Region. At the handover, agriculture minister Alpheus !Naruseb said the facility is one of the best that has been constructed in the country to date and will help the communities in this region to manage their livestock sustainably.Following the inauguration, farmers held the first auction at the facility. “It is our hope that this facility will be used by local farmers and livestock traders to encourage livestock marketing in the Omaheke Region in general and in the Talismanus area in particular,” said !Naruseb. The auction kraal has the capacity to hold 500 small stock and 1 000 large stock. According to !Naruseb, the construction of the kraal was done through the Sustainable Management of Namibia's Forested Lands (Nafola) project, which was funded by the Global Environment Facility in partnership with the United Nations Development Programme.It was a five-year project, which commenced in 2015 and ended in December 2019. The Nafola project was designed to reduce pressure on forest resources from competing land uses.Specifically, its objective was to reduce pressure on forest resources by facilitating the gazettement of community forests and increasing the capacity for the uptake of improved agriculture, livestock and forestry management practices in the community forest areas.One of the challenges identified during the formulation stage of the Nafola project was overgrazing in many parts of the country, particularly in the communal areas, !Naruseb said. He added that in many instances, livestock owners in the community area rarely consider the need to tackle overgrazing as an urgent issue. “They attribute the status of the rangelands to rainfall instead of land management or stock numbers. They argue that in good rainfall years there is enough grazing, and in poor rainfall years there is not.”!Naruseb said the dilemma is that social capital built slowly over many years is lost when livestock die in large numbers, leaving the community in a state of perpetual poverty.“It has been well-noted that overgrazing is heavily influenced by the overstocking of livestock. Hence, there is a need to reduce the number of livestock from time to time.”He said the best way to reduce livestock is by making livestock marketing facilities available and accessible by all farmers. “To avoid massive deaths of livestock, livestock marketing techniques should be compatible with the rangeland management. This auction kraal is therefore an attempt to help the communities in this region to manage their livestock sustainably.”!Naruseb added that the ministry also put efforts into improving the Northern Communal Areas entire marketing chain by building auction kraals and quarantine camps in some areas, and building and renovating abattoirs. “For farming communities, marketing infrastructures have been developed with the goal of facilitating smooth market access to sell your cattle and while at the same time getting the highest benefits from the sales of your livestock.”ELLANIE SMIT

First auction held at Talismanus auction kraal

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Namibian Sun 2025-07-07

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First auction held at Talismanus auction kraal

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Namibian Sun 2025-07-07

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