Youth urban migration in Namibia has hampered the nation’s agriculture sector’s ability to reduce unemployment and poverty among the age group, a new report has shown.
According to the latest agri-report by research firm Simonis Storm, the development has negatively impacted the potential growth of agriculture in rural areas due to a lack of workforce, risking future production.
“The agricultural industry is a crucial component of any economy, especially in Namibia, as the industry has one of the highest potentials to absorb the abundant unskilled labour in the country and improve on socioeconomic indicators such as poverty and unemployment. The problem, however, is that Namibia’s biggest unemployment issue is the youth and based on certain surveys, the youth are not keen on living in rural areas and focusing their efforts on agricultural activities,” the report states.
The lack of interest in the sector and rural to urban migration are hampering Namibia’s agricultural sector’s ability to reduce youth unemployment and poverty, as well as impacting future production, which may lead to a shortage of local produce.
“In this scenario, local farmers will have to increase investments in automation in order to deal with a labour shortage if we continue to observe a rural-urban migration and if the youth continue to prefer white-collar professions,” the report reads.
The research firm has also found an increase in the number of farmers looking to exit the sector, having found it unviable.
“Some farmers we engaged with are keen to exit the market altogether as they lack market power to influence the price of the harvest. In recent years, we have seen an increase in apps, websites and physical informal stalls being created to sell directly to the market and avoid wholesalers. While there is no evidence of farm closures, this remains a risk to long-term food production in the country,” the report noted.
Despite the challenges, agriculture production in Namibia has risen to its highest level since 2015, growing from N$9.71 billion to N$11.37 billion, a remarkable 17% increase in real terms (i.e., keeping prices fixed). “The rise in output has mainly been driven by higher productivity in the fishing and crop farming sub-sectors, with livestock farming remaining relatively flat since 2015. This also indicates that the livestock sector was most likely the worst affected by the drought Namibia experienced during 2014 to 2017,” the report noted.
The agricultural sector recorded a 2.6% growth last year, with all sub-sectors of the industry expanding in output in 2022. “During 2022, livestock farming increased by 1.2% y/y, fishing (up 2.3% y/y) and crop farming (up 4.3%) in 2022, leading to an overall growth of 2.6% in the agricultural industry.”
The ongoing pork shortages in the country as a result of the foot and mouth disease outbreak in South Africa are still supporting local pork prices, which have risen by 48.9% y/y in March 2023.
