Perspectives on farm living
It is now
my seventh month living in Namibia for my PhD fieldwork and my fifth on the
livestock farm collecting data. How time
has flown! When I first came to visit
this farm back in July I never envisioned that I would have even stayed here (I
had plans to live on another farm but that didn’t quite work out…!), let alone
feel so at home here. Always having lived
in cities, towns and large villages before, I wasn’t sure how well I’d cope
being a 260 km roundtrip to the nearest
town, not least because of the lack of social activities, but also the
logistical constraints on buying things like food when you run out!
Fortunately,
I fitted in spectacularly well to farm life, helping out with every aspect,
from the happy and fun like playing with the dogs, to the grim and ugly like
assisting with the killing and butchering of cows. What I have seen and taken part with on this
farm has opened my eyes to the world of livestock raising in an area shared
with predators (which was the goal of my fieldwork), but also the struggle that
farmers have in this arid country to be able to make a living from raising
animals extensively on grass in times of drought. I’ve seen the financial effects, as well as
the psychological, which has made me question the sustainability of this
livelihood for a future destined to have heightened extremes of weather.
I’ve seen
jackals running around close to the sheep kraal when I first arrived and
worried that the jackals may take some of the lambs. At that point, back in August, the drought
was still present but hadn’t reached the extreme tipping point that it did in
October. Thus, there was still wild food
around for the jackals, so the farmer was not scared that his livestock would
be taken. And indeed, he was
correct. Then as the months went by and
the grass became drier, the wild and domesticated ungulates began to start
showing signs of starvation. During this
time, the jackals became more desperate, visiting the sheep kraal regularly,
until one night the inevitable happened: a lamb was taken, despite Andy’s (the
guarding dog) best efforts. Now once the
jackals stepped over their mark, the farmer’s attitude to predators instantly
changed. Off he went with his son, armed
with a rifle and a spotlight, to hunt the perpetrators down at night. Once spotted, he took a shot, but luckily for
the jackals, missed. That seemed to be enough to scare them away, as there were
no more livestock losses after that incident.
I’ve come
to realise that, far from what some conservationists will lead you to believe,
farmers in general do tolerate predators on their land – sometimes to an
astonishingly lenient way. Most agree
that predators belong in the wild and would prefer to see them roaming around
on farmland as well as national parks, but they will all tell you that if a
predator starts causing problems, you must do something about it. What you do is up to the farmer and his prior
experience, values and economic status.
Some resort to lethal means, others step up their game with guarding
their livestock.
On this
farm, the owner has a very understanding view of nature and loves to see
wildlife, including large carnivores such as cheetahs, on his land. “They belong there”, he says, and muses about
the future of Namibian farmland, hoping that his son will still be able to see
these wild animals when he takes over the farm in the future. He keeps ostriches on the farm not for food
but for the sheer joy of seeing them. He
does hunt, but only takes what he needs and is very clever about what animal he
shoots (older males usually past their prime breeding age). He teaches his kids about nature and talks
fondly of his experiences with wild animals.
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Farm worker carries little calf that had run away from the herd |
Living on a
farm has given me a backstage pass to unlimited access to these windows of
observations that I would not have been able to gather had I lived a cushy life
in town (or indeed at the relative safety of a previous carnivore conservation
organisation I used to work at). Sure,
it would have been much easier to have taken that road, but the data I’ve
collected whilst living right out in the sticks has been so vast and
eye-opening that my original PhD questions evolved so many times just because
of the adaptive strategy I took, having to
change my perspective and objectives upon learning new snippets of
information.
I’ve
witnessed the devastation a bush fire can do to a farm at the peak of the dry
season; I’ve seen the demanding and never-ending jobs that a farmer has to keep
up on a daily basis in order to ensure his cattle are healthy and happy; I’ve
learnt about the clandestine how’s and why’s of the omnipresent cattle theft
and poaching on farms; I’ve observed the complex social structure of the
farming community in Namibia and how both politics and economics play a huge
role in engineering this; I’ve come to understand the different types of
farmers in this country and how their values affect their actions; I’ve
witnessed births and deaths on a regular basis; but most of all, I’ve come to
understand that living on a farm is a tough, challenging and physically
demanding job requiring you to be a jack of all trades and master of it all,
but that despite this, living on a farm is free life where you can wake up every
day to the sounds of birds and open your windows to see herds of kudu run
across the fields, learn about the plants and animals like many do not have the
opportunity to do, be your own boss, see the most spectacular sunrises and
sunsets anywhere on earth and then go to bed at night gazing up to the Milky
Way where the stars appear infinite.
It has not
been an easy journey, but I’ve enjoyed every minute of this wild and wonderful
ride out in the depths of rural Africa.
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Farm worker's kids look on to watch the cattle guys herd livestock beyond their house |
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