…why Namibia must move from fragmented agricultural support to a deliberate national subsidy strategy
For decades, agriculture in Namibia has occupied an uncomfortable position in the national economy.
It is simultaneously regarded as essential to the country’s survival and treated as though it should somehow prosper without the level of public support routinely provided to farmers elsewhere in the world.
That contradiction can no longer be sustained.
Namibia is a vast, dry country with limited arable land, highly variable rainfall, recurrent droughts, expensive water and electricity, long distances between production areas and markets, and a relatively small domestic consumer base.
Yet Namibian farmers are expected to compete not only with farmers in neighbouring South Africa and Botswana, but ultimately with producers from countries where agriculture is backed by sophisticated systems of subsidised finance, crop insurance, input support, market guarantees, infrastructure investment and direct income assistance.
That is not a level playing field.
The question Namibia should therefore be asking is not whether the government should subsidise agriculture. It already does.
The real question is whether the scale, structure and purpose of that support are sufficient to make Namibian agriculture competitive.
The answer, at present, is no.
An economy built on livestock
Agriculture is not a peripheral activity in Namibia. It is deeply embedded in the country’s economic and social structure.
The Sixth National Development Plan identifies Namibia’s agri-food sector as consisting principally of livestock farming – cattle, goats, sheep and poultry – together with crop production, including maize, sorghum, wheat, oilseeds, groundnuts, rice, pearl millet and horticultural products.
It describes the sector as dominated by livestock and notes that agriculture contributed an average 8.3% of GDP during the NDP5 period. About 70% of Namibians derive livelihoods from livestock and crop value chains.
Livestock is particularly important. Namibia’s cattle, sheep and goat industries have historically provided the backbone of commercial agriculture.
Beef and sheep products have established international markets, while Namibian livestock is also exported live, particularly to South Africa and Angola.
The government’s own NDP6 document says approximately 70% of livestock production is exported and identifies beef markets in the European Union, Norway, China and South Africa.
This is an extraordinary achievement for a country whose environmental conditions make agriculture inherently difficult.
But it also exposes the central problem.
Namibia has built an export-oriented agricultural sector in one of the world’s most hostile agricultural environments – and then largely expects individual farmers to carry the cost of that environmental disadvantage themselves.
Beyond cattle: the agriculture we could build
The future of Namibian agriculture cannot be confined to cattle, sheep and goats.
There is enormous potential in horticulture, particularly high-value, water-efficient crops and export products. Grapes and dates have already demonstrated what is possible.
In the fourth quarter of 2025, Namibia exported horticultural products worth approximately N$1.3 billion.
Grapes accounted for about N$1.2 billion of that amount, with the Netherlands, United Kingdom and Germany among the leading destinations.
The Namibia Agronomic Board’s 2023/24 annual report similarly recorded horticultural exports of 102,867 tonnes worth N$1.9 billion.
These numbers should change the way Namibia thinks about agriculture.
Agriculture is not merely about subsistence, food gardens and mahangu.
It can be a sophisticated export industry.
It can produce foreign exchange.
It can create rural employment.
It can support logistics, cold storage, packaging, processing, transport, financial services and manufacturing.
It can create an entirely new generation of Namibian businesses.
Yet the same country that can export billions of dollars’ worth of minerals and hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of agricultural products still imports enormous quantities of basic food.
The NDP6 notes that Namibia produces only about 40% of the food it consumes. During the 2024/25 season, it imported 89% of maize consumption, 98% of wheat consumption and 88% of pearl millet consumption.
This is not simply an agricultural problem.
It is a national economic vulnerability.
Government already subsidises agriculture, but not enough
It would be inaccurate to say that Namibia does nothing for farmers.
The government already subsidises agricultural inputs and provides support through a variety of programmes.
During the 2024/25 drought-support interventions, for example, the Ministry of Agriculture provided seeds and fertiliser at subsidised prices.
Maize seed was sold at N$125 per 5kg, while NPK fertiliser was made available at N$500 per 50kg bag, with limits on quantities per farmer.
The National Horticulture Development Programme and the Namibia Agricultural Mechanisation and Seed Improvement Project provide additional support.
NAMSIP targets communal farmers, cooperatives, organised groups, resettled farmers and emerging commercial farmers, with interventions covering mechanisation and seed improvement.
Namibia also uses market intervention to support domestic production. The Namibian Agronomic Board’s Market Share Promotion scheme requires horticultural importers to source a minimum proportion of their products locally before obtaining unrestricted import permits.
The minimum market-share requirement currently stands at 47%.
These interventions are important.
But they remain fragmented.
Namibia needs to move from a collection of agricultural programmes to an agricultural competitiveness policy.
The objective should not simply be to help farmers survive.
It should be to make them competitive.
Look at what the world is doing
Namibia does not have to invent this model.
The world’s most successful agricultural economies have long understood that agriculture is too strategically important to be left entirely to market forces.
Consider the European Union.
Through its Common Agricultural Policy, the EU provides direct income support to farmers, market measures and rural-development assistance.
Under the current system, farmers generally receive income support based on eligible hectares, while countries can provide additional support to specific sectors and categories of farmers.
The European Commission says direct payments are designed to provide a safety net, make farming more profitable and protect food security. In the EU, direct payments account for an average of 19% of farmers’ income.
The lesson is important: even some of the world’s wealthiest economies do not tell their farmers to simply compete and survive.
They support them because food security is considered a strategic national interest.
The United States takes a similarly sophisticated approach.
American farmers have access to federal crop and livestock insurance programmes, with government support helping reduce the cost and risk of insurance.
The 2025 legislation increased subsidy rates for different levels of crop insurance coverage from the 2026 crop year and expanded support for beginning farmers and ranchers.
Then there is Brazil, a particularly relevant example for Namibia because Brazil has transformed agriculture into one of the world’s great export industries.
For the 2026/27 agricultural cycle, Brazil’s government announced R$525.1 billion in credit for commercial agriculture.
The programme supports production, investment, irrigation, machinery, storage, innovation, sustainability and risk management.
Brazil’s model demonstrates something Namibia should take seriously: government support does not necessarily mean government ownership.
The state can create the financial conditions under which private farmers invest, modernise, expand and compete.
Brazil also provides preferential support to family agriculture. Its 2026/27 family-farming plan includes R$85.2 billion in Pronaf financing, with interest rates as low as 2% for food production and 1% for agroecological, organic and biodiversity-related production.
India provides another lesson. Its government subsidises fertilizers, with farmers receiving fertilisers at controlled and subsidised prices.
In 2025, India’s government approved more than Rs37,216 crore in nutrient-based subsidies for phosphatic and potassic fertilisers.
The country also uses minimum support prices to protect farmers from distress sales. For mandated crops, the government sets minimum support prices, with the stated policy objective of providing farmers a return of at least 50% over the weighted average cost of production.
And Namibia’s neighbour Botswana offers perhaps the most immediate regional comparison.
Botswana has used agricultural support schemes to improve the availability, accessibility and affordability of farming inputs, with programmes such as ISPAAD and its successor Temo Letlotlo designed to support agricultural production and commercialisation.
Botswana has also introduced horticulture support and drought-related assistance.
If Botswana, with its own water constraints, small population and harsh climatic conditions, considers agricultural support a legitimate instrument of food-security policy, Namibia should not be embarrassed to do the same.
Subsidies are not handouts
There will inevitably be an objection.
Why should a commercial farmer receive a subsidy?
The answer is simple: because the farmer is not the only beneficiary.
When the government supports a productive farmer, it is investing in a chain.
A successful farm buys machinery.
It employs workers.
It purchases fuel, veterinary products, seed, fertiliser and equipment.
It uses banks, insurers, accountants and transport companies.
It sends animals to abattoirs.
It creates demand for cold storage, packaging and logistics.
It supplies retailers and restaurants.
It generates taxable income.
It produces food that would otherwise have to be imported.
And when it exports, it earns foreign currency.
Agricultural subsidies should therefore be understood as economic infrastructure, not welfare.
The key is to design them correctly.
Namibia should not subsidise failure indefinitely. It should subsidise the conditions required for productivity.
What a Namibian agricultural subsidy model could look like
The Windhoek Observer believes the government should establish a comprehensive National Agricultural Competitiveness Fund.
Its purpose should be to reduce the structural cost disadvantages facing Namibian farmers.
First, the government should subsidise agricultural finance.
Farmers investing in irrigation, solar power, water infrastructure, breeding programmes, machinery, storage, greenhouses, processing and renewable energy should have access to loans at preferential rates.
Second, the government should introduce a national agricultural insurance subsidy.
Namibia’s farmers cannot control drought, floods, disease or extreme weather. The state should help make comprehensive crop and livestock insurance affordable.
Third, input subsidies should become predictable rather than crisis-driven.
Seed, fertiliser, animal health products and certain irrigation inputs should be subsidised for qualifying producers, with greater support directed towards strategically important food crops.
Fourth, the government should subsidise irrigation infrastructure.
Water is arguably Namibia’s most important agricultural constraint. Every hectare brought under productive, sustainable irrigation should be regarded as an economic asset.
Fifth, the government should support mechanisation.
A Namibian farmer should not have to pay the full cost of machinery that can dramatically improve national food production.
The government could establish machinery-leasing and equipment-subsidy schemes accessible to commercial, emerging and communal producers.
Sixth, the government should support agricultural processing.
There is little economic sense in exporting raw products while importing processed food. Subsidies and tax incentives should encourage meat processing, dairy processing, grain milling, fruit processing, leather, animal feed and other downstream industries.
Seventh, the government should expand export support.
Namibian farmers who meet international standards should have assistance with certification, market access, veterinary compliance, packaging and export logistics.
But subsidies must come with accountability
None of this should become a political patronage scheme.
Subsidies must be conditional.
A farmer receiving public support should have to demonstrate production, proper financial management, compliance with environmental standards and measurable outcomes.
Support should reward productivity, not political connections.
There should also be a clear distinction between social protection and commercial agriculture.
Communal farmers, emerging farmers, resettled farmers, young farmers and established commercial producers do not have identical needs. A national policy should recognise those differences.
And support should be transparent.
The public should know how much money is being spent, which farmers receive it, what is being produced and what economic return is being generated.
Food security is national security
The strongest argument for agricultural subsidies, however, is not the farmer.
It is the Namibian consumer.
When Namibia imports the majority of its maize, wheat and mahangu requirements, it effectively exports economic opportunities and imports food-price vulnerability.
When the rand weakens, when fuel prices rise, when drought hits South Africa, when transport costs increase or when international commodity prices spike, Namibian consumers feel the consequences.
Namibia cannot control international food prices.
But it can control how much food it produces.
The government has already recognised this vulnerability.
Its current agricultural interventions, horticultural market-share requirements and input-support programmes demonstrate that policymakers understand the problem.
What is missing is ambition.
The 2026 Fiscal Strategy acknowledges that agriculture remains vulnerable to erratic rainfall and that the livestock sector was affected by drought and herd rebuilding.
This is precisely why Namibia needs a long-term agricultural strategy rather than a series of responses to each drought or food shortage.
Namibia can afford to think bigger
Namibia is often told that subsidies are too expensive.
But what is the cost of not producing?
Every tonne of maize imported represents money leaving the economy.
Every kilogram of wheat imported represents an opportunity that was not captured locally.
Every imported vegetable represents a market that could have supported a Namibian farmer.
Every young Namibian who leaves the rural economy because farming is not viable represents lost economic potential.
And every drought that destroys productive capacity without adequate insurance or financial support makes the eventual recovery more expensive.
The choice is therefore not between spending money on agriculture and spending nothing.
We are already spending money.
The choice is whether we spend strategically enough to change the structure of the economy.Namibia has already shown that it can produce agricultural products that command international prices.
Our grapes are reaching Europe. Our beef has entered demanding international markets. Our livestock industry has survived droughts that would destroy agricultural systems elsewhere.
The farmer is not the weak link.
The policy environment is.
Namibian farmers should not be asked to compete naked against farmers whose governments have equipped them with armour.
The European Union protects farm incomes. The United States subsidises agricultural risk. Brazil provides hundreds of billions of reais in agricultural credit. India subsidises critical inputs and protects farmers against market collapse. Botswana supports its agricultural producers.
These countries have reached the same conclusion: food is too important to be treated as an ordinary commodity.
Namibia should reach it too.
The next phase of agricultural policy should therefore be built around one principle:
The government must not farm. The government must make farming possible, profitable and competitive.
That means subsidising the inputs that matter, the infrastructure that unlocks production, the finance that enables investment and the insurance that protects farmers against risks they cannot control.
It means demanding accountability in return.
And above all, it means recognising that supporting agriculture is not doing farmers a favour.
It is investing in Namibia’s food security, rural economy, employment, exports, foreign exchange and economic sovereignty.
For a country that produces only about 40% of the food it consumes, that is not an indulgence.
It is an economic necessity.
The time has come for Namibia to stop asking whether it can afford to subsidise agriculture.
The more important question is whether we can afford not to.
