Prospects of Cattle Farming in an Era of Land Degradation-Perceptions of the Farmers in the Okakarara Communal Area, Namibia

Livestock farming plays an important role in many rural people s’ livelihoods around the globe. The sector is, however, faced with numerous challenges, particularly land degradation. Namibia, one of the driest countries in the world, is no exception to land degradation challenges, mostly among communal rangeland areas. Several studies and interventions on land degradation have been conducted in the country, however, with limited or no information on farmers\u27 perceptions. Although land degradation may be a physical process, understanding its causes, process, indicators, and effects from the own users’ is indispensable. Here, we assessed farmers\u27 perception in the eastern part of Namibia, Okakarara communal area. We conducted detailed interviews with 41 livestock farming households, selected through purposive sampling, from four villages. We documented how farmers perceive cattle farming in their areas amid land degradation and the interventions that they intend to make to sustain their livelihood in the future. Amongst others, farmers perceive livestock farming to be costly, relying mainly on procured supplements (97%), rangelands will deteriorate further due to increasing droughts (85%) and the land will become more bush encroached. To overcome future farming uncertainties, over 70% of the farmers state that they aim to diversify farming practices e.g. engaging in crop farming, use encroacher bushes to feed livestock (51%), planting grasses and preserving grasses for drought conditions (37%) as other key interventions to sustain livelihoods. Interestingly, removing the encroached bushes (de-bushing) was only mentioned by few farmers (10 %) as an intervention to improve rangelands. This is despite that the technique has lately gained momentum in the country as one of the solutions to overcome rangeland degradation. This could imply, farmers, are not yet made aware of the de-bushing techniques. The study suggests future community programs such as on-farm range research and development should consider farmers\u27 views instead of side lining them