The fat years and the lean years

Abstract

No abstract provided. The following is taken from the author's introduction:

"History cannot be written unless the historian can achieve some kind of contact with the mind of those about whom he is writing. " (E. H. Carr)

Any Namibian considering the state of the country today, and its future, will of necessity be concerned about the country's economic health and the necessity for economic reconstruction. It is out of this concern that the present work has been written

The rebuilding of the economy is vital to safeguard the country's future, yet it is a fact that economic development is not a process which will be starting from a blank slate. The colonial history of Namibia, and in particular the way in which the economy has been distorted in an attempt to secure the needs of the South African state, has left the country ill-prepared to provide a sufficient living for its people. The work of development has to first begin by charting this process of distortion. We need to count the cost of colonialism in order to see what went wrong, before we can begin to put it right

This proposition will become evident in the work at hand. Agriculture in commercial and communal areas is still the biggest employer of Namibians. In the context of shrinking export markets for Namibia's traditional export earners such as meat, diamonds and uranium, agriculture is also the sector most likely to be able to provide a living for the majority of the population. Agricultural development is thus a major priority in rebuilding the economy

The Karakul industry was once the most vital and most profitable part of agriculture, contributing 50 percent of total agricultural income in 1977, 8 percent of GDP in 1977, [1] and 9 percent of total export earnings, second only to mining [2]. The industry had several characteristics which rendered it particularly suitable for the conditions in the South. The Karakul breed was well adapted to the arid ecological conditions, the input required in terms of labour, land, and capital inputs was lower for Karakul than for other types of livestock such as cattle or meat sheep, and the process of slaughtering and preparing pelts for market was labour, rather than capital intensive. These characteristics would have rendered Karakul production an attractive option in present day Namibia, since the industry would have been suitable for extension to small scale farmers. The collapse of the industry must be reckoned a major disadvantage for the country, and in particular for the economy of the South

Of course, the industry has not completely disappeared. Some three quarter million Karakul sheep still remain in the country. [3]. However, the auction houses have divested, the processing and marketing channels have shrunk, and 'soft' infrastructure such as knowledge and experience has largely disappeared from the farming community. It would require a major input by the state or non-governmental organizations to resuscitate the industry. Unfortunately, with a few exceptions, Karakul is not taken seriously as a development option in Namibia

The reasons for this may lie in the explanations given for the collapse of the industry. Common wisdom, as reflected in trade papers and government documents, argues that the reasons for the collapse were the fall in pelt prices caused by the disintegration of the overseas market for Karakul, the massive rise in input costs, in particular petrol, and the drought. If this were the case, then of course it would not be realistic to resuscitate the industry. Droughts are a recurring phenomena of the Namibian climate, and no one would build an industry which is liable to be crushed by drought. The cost inflation has, if anything, increased over the years, while no sane development expert would advise a developing country to render itself open to the fickleness of a volatile luxury goods market where tastes are liable to change at a moment's notice

I have attempted to look at these various explanations in turn. Chapter one attempts to deconstruct 'the drought'. It begins by looking at the historical interrelationship between colonialism and the environment in order to explain why complaints about drought and lack of water stretch throughout the period 1978-1985, despite the fact that the drought, in terms of rainfall, only lasted from 1981-1983 in the South. The chapter goes on to look at the consequences of farming systems introduced under colonialism and its effects on the well being of the vegetation and animal communities. It argues that the effects of the farming systems was such as to raise private and social costs of the Karakul industry, thus rendering it increasingly unviable. It is hoped that this is good news for Namibians, since it implies that the problem is not the Karakul industry as such, but the historical circumstances in which the industry developed

Chapter two looks at the drought again, this time from the point of view of farming practices. It begins from the premise that an efficient farmer, one who practiced good husbandry, would have suffered less from the drought than one who wasted natural resources. The chapter then tries to ascertain, as far as is possible, whether Karakul farmers on the whole were good or bad managers. It should be mentioned that I originally intended to carry out field work in the district of Maltahohe in the South, in order to provide a local perspective. However, time did not allow for this. Chapter two is the only chapter in which written sources have provided enough information to make a local perspective possible. It is also the chapter in which a local perspective is particularly desirable, and it thus deals almost entirely with the district. Due to topographical conditions, Maltahohe is rich in water compared to other parts of the region, and it was one of the most profitable Karakul farming districts in the South. Farmers there were generally reckoned to be amongst the wealthiest in the country. It provides a 'best case' study: farmers in that district were likely to be amongst the best and most efficient in the country

Chapter two also lays the basis for a consideration of the' cost-price squeeze'. If farmers were managing as efficiently and as profitably as they possibly could, any increase in costs would have a negative effects on profits. However, if farmers were inefficient managers, cost inflation could have been contained by using inputs more efficiently and thus reducing costs. It is evident that a study of farming practices is crucial in evaluating the effects of cost inflation

Chapter three examines the cost price squeeze in some detail. The fall in demand is normally ascribed to a change in tastes in the main export market, Germany, caused by the animal rights movement and sanctions. I have not looked at either of those I factors, since Southern Africa is hardly the right place to begin researching German demand. I must however confess to be slightly skeptical about the sanctions argument. Firstly, the rich are not normally the most politically correct of groups. Luxury products such as gold and diamonds were never subject to sanctions, and one would expect karakul fur to be in this category. Secondly, as anyone living in South Africa during the late eighties will testify, sanctions were circumvented in the most imaginative ways. One became accustomed to oil imports from Singapore, nickel exports from the Ciskei, and (my own personal favorite) deciduous fruit exports from the Transkei. All things being equal, the response to sanctions one would have expected would have been a massive increase in Karakul pelts exported through Bophutatswana or from some other homeland, not a complete collapse of the market

All things, however, were not equal. Chapter three argues that demand factors were not completely beyond the control of local farmers, and that in particular a fall in the quality of pelts produced had much to do with the low prices received. This should not come as a surprise after evidence presented in previous chapters; environmental degradation and neglect of the animals was bound to result in poor quality pelts sooner or later. Unfortunately for the Karakul industry, the fall in quality coincided with the second oil crisis and rampant cost inflation. But the root cause has to be sought in production conditions in the industry

Chapter four considers a factor not commonly mentioned in the literature, namely the rapid and extensive increase in farming subsidies characteristic of the last years of South African rule. I must ask the reader to bear with me somewhat in chapter four. If one wrote about South Africa, for example, in the same period, there would be a large array of well-researched secondary sources and a body of conventional knowledge which the student could rely upon. In Namibia, the array of secondary sources consists, as far as I am aware, of a paper by Moll (1990). While I have found this paper tremendously helpful, it was in fact written as an input paper for the Land Conference of 1990 and aimed at laying the basis for a discussion on the introduction of a land tax. Its usefulness for my purpose was therefore somewhat limited, and I found myself in the position of first having to ascertain the facts, before I could consider their relevance to my topic

'It may sound strange that subsidies may contribute to the demise of an industry but it is possible, if the amount of subsidies paid out is large enough to significantly affect farmers' economic decision making, and if the subsidies are non-specific, or reward a switch to some other branch of farming. It is argued that this was in fact the case, and that the colonial government's policies have to bear a large part of the blame for the collapse of karakul industry

Chapter five considers the lessons learnt by official circles. Farming subsidies were not new to the region, the drought of 1967-1970 had also been accompanied by special drought subsidies, which lasted until 1974. But prior developments were dwarfed by the expansion in subsidies which now took place. The period 1980-1985 were the halcyon days of farming subsidies in both South Africa and South West Africa. The political and strategic importance of keeping farmers on the land particularly in South West Africa, was paramount, while economic considerations came a poor second. In a sense, an economic experiment was tried where massive amounts of government investment was injected into an economy of one million people. The effects on macroeconomic factors such as the inflation rate and the exchange rate were terrible. The consequences for ecological stability was devastating. So was the effect on the Karakul industry. Eventually, even a country as rich as Namibia was then could not afford it, and this began to be recognized even in official circles. In 1986 the subsidy system began to scaled down, and discussions began with farmer representatives on a new agricultural policy. But by that time it was too late for the Karakul industry. Whether the ecology will ever recover is a question yet to be answered

A closer investigation of the causes of the collapse of the Karakul industry then offers some hope for its re-establishment. If the problem was environmental insensitivity, bad farming practices, low product quality and a subsidy system which demotivated farmers from producing Karakul, these are all things which can be rectified. The process may not be simple, but the results are well worth it. The Karakul breed is unmatched in its versatility, since it is economically valuable not just for pelt production, but as a wool, meat and milk producer. The breed deserves to be reinstated to a central place in the agricultural economy of the country. It is hoped that this work has made some contribution to that development

As a historian, however, I have had to concede defeat. I have certainly not been able to fully comprehend the minds of farmers and officials in the Karakul industry in this period. Nor do I think any black Namibian ever could. To have been given so much and achieved so little, to have left the land in worse heart than when they received it, is something wholly alien to the way I was brought up. My grandfather spent forty years as a farmer without receiving any help whatsoever from the government. To him and to my grandmother, who had to spend their lives watching the land of their ancestors being slowly devastated, I dedicate this work. Footnotes: 1 Die Repub1ikein, 9/1/1978, pp. 4; 2 Green, 1981, pp. 42; 3 Von Kühne, 1992

of total export earnings, second only to mining. 2 The industry had several characteristics which rendered it particularly suitable for the conditions in the South. The Karakul breed was well adapted to the arid ecological conditions, the input required in terms of labour, land, and capital inputs was lower for Karakul than for other types of livestock such as cattle or meat sheep, and the process of slaughtering 1 Die Repub1ikein, 9/1/1978, pp. 4 2 Green, 1981, pp. 42 and preparing pelts for market was labour, rather than capital intensive. These characteristics would have rendered Karakul production an attractive option in present day Namibia, since the industry would have been suitable for extension to small scale farmers. The collapse of the industry must be reckoned a major disadvantage for the country, and in particular for the economy of the South. Of course, the industry has not completely disappeared. Some three quarter million Karakul sheep still remain in the country. 3 However, the auction houses have divested, the processing and marketing channels have shrunk,