Development visions, livelihood realities – how conservation shapes agricultural value chains in the Zambezi region, Namibia

ABSTRACT

In the Zambezi region, seemingly unrelated political visions propagate two development paths: nature conservation to promote tourism and Community-Based Natural Resource Management (CBNRM), and agricultural intensification. This study examines the unintended interrelations between these top-down visions by linking upgrading possibilities in agricultural value chains (AVC) with livelihood strategies of farmers from a bottom-up perspective. The results are based on qualitative field research that explains the how and why of the emergence of multiple rural development trajectories. We operationalise upgrading as actual and aspirational hanging in, stepping up and stepping out strategies. Findings show that although farmers envision stepping up their agricultural activities to better position themselves in AVCs, they remain in a strategic hanging in or downgrading state due CBNRM-related institutions. Concluding, we propose implications for CBNRM that synthesise competing development visions with actual livelihoods realities through the acknowledgment of small-scale agrarian systems rather than the crowding out of such.

KEYWORDS:

• CBNRM
• agricultural value chains
• livelihood strategies
• conservation
• Namibia

Acknowledgements

This research was conducted under the umbrella of the DFG-funded CRC TRR 228/1 ‘Future Rural Africa’. The corresponding author would like to thank collaborators at the University of Namibia, Katima Mulilo Campus. The research would not have been possible without the enormous support of our co-researcher and research assistant, Image Katangu and Pauline Munyindei (UNAM). The corresponding author would like to thank all the farmers and other research participants for openly sharing their knowledge. Two anonymous reviewers have contributed to final version of the paper and have improved it with constructive comments and suggestions.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft: [Grant Number CRC228].