By:Hilya Ngolo

Member of Parliament for Popular Democratic Movement (PDM), Vipuakuje Muharukua has called for the Southern African Community Development Community’s Parliamentary Forum to formulate a regional agricultural development plan.

Muharukua made the call at the 53rd SADC Parliamentary Forum’s Assembly which focused on the theme, “Modernising Agriculture to Address Food Insecurity and Youth Unemployment in the SADC Region: The Role of Parliaments”.

The objectives of the 53rd plenary session were to discuss the importance of growing and modernising the agricultural sector, which is the backbone of most economies on the African continent. The meeting also discussed ways to create income and reduce poverty to address food insecurities.

Members of parliament from SADC national parliaments were further expected to deliberate on prompt implementable measures on food insecurity and youth unemployment in line with climate change impacts towards agriculture, consider adaptation strategies that can be achieved by SADC Member Parliaments on substantial gains to sustainable agriculture that can influence food security and youth employment creation, amongst others.

According to SADC-PF, high youth unemployment rates, inadequate social welfare systems and high HIV/Aids infection rates contribute to food insecurity in the region, adding that food security challenges in SADC countries are partly due to historical injustices regarding access to land, resources and policies that fail to promote smallholder agriculture and rural development.

Even though the region is boasting 60% of arable land, its agricultural sector remains poor, lacking new modern mechanization techniques.

“The SADC-PF should jointly build infrastructure that ensures that it will enhance our agricultural sector'” Muharukua stated, further stressing the importance of subsiding the agricultural sector in the region.

“We are competing with the rest of the world, the rest of the world is subsidising their agricultural produce, whereas African farmers put their produce on the market with the bare minimum help from [their] governments.”

As a result, he said, farmers are financing their agricultural ventures out of their own pockets or salary for those that are part-time farmers.

He proposed the crafting of a policy that dictates to governments to use a percentage of their gross domestic products towards the agricultural sector development as a way to address food insecurity and youth unemployment in the SADC region.

He further implored the fellow parliamentarians to make sure the railroad networks within the region are in order to facilitate intra-SADC trade in terms of agriculture produce and products.

“Compared to its population, Namibia is a large country, the only issue it faces is the lack of water. Countries with water need to assist other countries that don’t have. One of the solutions we should have in Namibia is desalination,”Muharukua explained.

He urged SADC governments to deal with hunger and poverty. “The time is now, and subsidising is the way forward”.

Landless Peoples Movement’s lawmaker, who is also a member of the SADC-PF, Utaara Mootu bemoaned the fact that governments don’t create market access for help young and disadvantaged farmers.

She said small-scale farmers need help to transition to new modern mechanization techniques.

The Namibian parliamentary delegation was led by Phillipus Katamelo on behalf of the Speaker of the National Assembly Peter Katjavivi. Other members included Agnes Kafula, Paula Kooper, Lonia Kaishungu and Paulus Mbangu.