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

1. Introduction

‘[The Zambezi] region, especially, has great potential to become the food basket and one of the tourism hubs in our country, and the government will work relentlessly to help make this reality’. (Saara Kuugongelwa-Amadhila, cited in Kooper, 2019).

Namibia's Prime Minister Saara Kuugongelwa-Amadhila expresses the ambitious goals set by the Namibian national government for economic development in the north-eastern strip of the country, Zambezi region, both in the tourism and agricultural sector. These two economic development pillars are manifested in the Fifth National Development Plan (NDP5), which defines political goals to for the years 2017–2022. The modernisation of the agricultural sector is intended to improve small-scale communal farmers’ skillsets and to integrate them into domestic and international value chains (Republic of Namibia 2017). Simultaneously, NDP5 points towards significant development potential in nature conservation and the attraction of international eco-tourists, thus promoting the commercialisation of nature conservation, inter alia by establishing communal conservancies (Republic of Namibia 2017).

Although the development of both agriculture and nature conservation is seemingly unrelated, their implementation on a common territory naturally results in interrelations. Large parts of Namibia are designated as national parks or conservancies; meanwhile 70% of the people depend on agriculture as the most important livelihood, and 23% on subsistence agriculture (Ruppel & Ruppel-Schlichting 2016). In the Zambezi region, there are 15 conservancies which cover 27% of the region’s surface. The region is relatively well-suited for agriculture with favourable climate and surrounding large rivers, but simultaneously shows increasing numbers of medium and large sized wildlife species (Mendelsohn 2006). As we show, the anticipated agricultural expansion is at odds with increasing efforts to establish communal conservancies across most of the region. Unlike the political narrative of two parallel paths, unintended and often detrimental interrelations exist and become evident when taking the perspective of local livelihoods.

Communal conservancies are a decentralised form of land-use and environmental management, which transfer authority to an organised committee, and offer the community opportunities to benefit primarily from tourism revenues (e.g. Bandyopadhyay et al. 2009; Lubilo & Hebinck 2019). Such Community-Based Natural Resource Management (CBNRM) manifests in small, mosaic-like territories, where the institutional context significantly differs from institutions regulating communal land-use (Gargallo 2020). Due to the rapid expansion of CBNRM within the last three decades on the African continent, numerous studies concern the impact of conservancies on rural development (e.g. Anyolo 2012; Naidoo et al. 2019), the commodification of nature (e.g. Lenggenhager 2018; Koot 2019; Lubilo & Hebinck 2019; Kalvelage et al. 2020), and distribution of benefits within local communities (e.g. Bandyopadhyay et al. 2009; Silva & Mosimane 2014; Mosimane & Silva 2015; Schnegg & Kiaka 2018).

What is lacking in CBNRM-related research, however, is a multi-sectoral perspective that considers local residents’ livelihood strategies in response to top-down conservation efforts (Gargallo 2020). Moreover, little attention has been paid to differences among agricultural communities residing within and outside of conservancies. A comparative approach allows to filter out the impacts of CBNRM institutions on livelihood pathways. Against this backdrop, the paper investigates the impact of CBNRM visions and institutions on agricultural development and ultimately the livelihood strategies of small-scale farmers in the Zambezi region.

While we illustrate the changing livelihood strategies in agricultural value chains, this paper does not analyse the value chain per se, in its entirety from crop production to consumption. Rather, it focuses on the regional production segment and the prospects and limits of upgrading caused by interrelations with nature conservation by addressing the following questions: how do differing institutional settings, both in and outside of conservancies, shape farmers’ livelihood strategies? Which possibilities exist to upgrade their position within the regional agricultural value chain? The findings can contribute to a broader understanding of policy coherence and participation across localities in southern Africa, where nature conservation efforts often collide with people’s dependency on agricultural production and envisioned upgrading of agricultural value chains. Sections 2, 3, 4, and 5 present theoretical debates, methodology, empirical results, and policy implications respectively. We conclude by summarising our findings and reflecting on the need for further research.

2. Missing links in CBNRM research

In a recent reflection on both successes and failures of CBNRM, Koot et al. state that ‘CBNRM programs globally may fall short of their high expectations […]. Failures in terms of the gap between presented visions and the execution of these visions are observed as a feature of market-based dimensions of CBNRM’ (2020:5). In other words, possibilities for households located in conservancies to generate income and establish sustainable livelihoods based on CBNRM are not sufficiently pronounced and diversified.

This missing link between vision and execution is especially relevant in the agrarian context (Gargallo 2020; Koot et al. 2020). Prior studies identify two major reasons for the disconnection between CBNRM benefits and agricultural livelihoods: as wildlife increases in protected areas, conflict with humans increases causing damage on agricultural infrastructure (Silva & Mosimane 2014; Schnegg & Kiaka 2018), and resource use for agricultural purposes such as water and land are restricted (Koot et al. 2020). By explicitly including agricultural value chains (AVC) in CBNRM studies, farmers’ livelihood strategies and upgrading possibilities can be associated to institutions brought about by communal conservancies. The subsequent sections set forth two concepts that help addressing the gap in CBNRM-related research: livelihood strategies and value chain upgrading.

2.1. The structural component of livelihood strategies

The livelihoods perspective (Scoones 1998, 2009) has recently been included in value chain studies to assess the impacts of our globalised economy from a structural, bottom-up perspective (Fold 2014; Vicol et al. 2019). We understand the term ‘livelihood’ as complex, diverse, and historically shaped pathways of pursuing life, either individually or within a household or community. The Sustainable Livelihoods Approach (SLA) helps to conceptualise strategies that local actors choose to cope with their environment (Scoones 1998, 2009; Vicol et al. 2019). This paper does not aim to implement a ‘classic’ SLA which analyses each household’s physical, social, financial, natural and human capital. This approach has been critiqued by several researchers (e.g. Dorward 2009) for its instrumental conceptualisation of five capitals and for methodological individualism that underestimates the exploratory power of structures and institutions.

Rather than knowing which capitals are accessible, we argue that it is more important to provide reasons for specific capital endowments and resulting livelihood strategies. The institutional setting is crucial to depict reasons as to why certain strategies can or cannot be carried out. Institutions manifest in the form of laws, regulations and policies or local norms, values, and socio-economic regulations that shape livelihood aspirations and ultimately people’s agency to carry out certain actions. The institutional setting is simultaneously constituted by internal norms and values and externally implemented visions and regulations. In the case of CBNRM, novel institutions are for instance the establishment of a conservancy management board, the development of zonation maps to allocate land-use towards tourism, wildlife and agricultural areas and the management of income that is generated by the conservancy body (Mosimane & Silva 2015; Lenggenhager 2018). Thus, livelihood strategies are not developed individually and out of context; rather, they are shaped by structural conditions and institutional settings (Scoones et al. 2012; Vicol et al. 2018).

Dorward (2009) usefully categorises livelihood strategies under the influence of various internal and external conditions through interrelations between livelihood strategies, their institutional environment and assets. Livelihood strategies are grouped according to three trajectories, referred to as hanging in, stepping up, and stepping out (Dorward 2009). These typologies have been applied in case studies on climate resilience, poverty, and small-scale farming (e.g. Dorward et al. 2009; Scoones et al. 2012; Steinbach et al. 2016; Vicol 2019; Yobe et al. 2019). Hanging in refers to households, often under precarious conditions that maintain their current activities without investment in new assets and thus do not upgrade their economic situation or position in the value chain. Stepping up entails efforts to upgrade current activities through investment in further assets, such as agricultural inputs or on-farm diversification. Stepping out refers to shifting to different activities that would deprive assets from their previous use for investment in new, more promising income generating activities, such as shifting from agricultural production to stable employment (Dorward et al. 2009; Dorward 2009; Vicol 2019).

To overcome the static nature of the SLA, livelihood strategies are therefore regarded as dynamic, aspirational trajectories that households do not always achieve, as they may drop out, move back or move up (Dorward 2009). ‘The possibilities of different households to hang in, step up, or step out (…) hinge on their location within the socio-political structure’ (Vicol et al. 2019:142), which becomes evident through conceptually linking development trajectories on the micro-level to structural and institutional dynamics.

2.2. Upgrading in agricultural value chains

In many rural areas in Africa, agriculture is an important livelihood and the main driver of economic development. Hinting towards the importance of upgrading in rural, agriculture-based contexts, Vicol et al. note that: ‘Value chain upgrading interventions have emerged in recent years as a dominant approach to rural development’ (2018:26), and must be critically examined with regard to ‘livelihoods and local agrarian dynamics’ (2018). Smallholder farmers, amongst other disadvantaged groups within value chains (e.g. female labourers in the Global South), have weaker positions in negotiating trade conditions or prices and thus less opportunities to capture value (Ponte & Ewert 2009). Therefore, questions of agency, power and benefit distribution of upgrading are recently gaining momentum in value chain research. Global Value Chain (GVC) approaches especially focus on firms’ upgrading strategies within the value chain – according to a ‘moving up the chain’ logic (Ponte 2019) – rather than impacts on and strategies of individual livelihoods (Vicol et al. 2018). Although we do not employ a GVC theory, we adapt the concept of upgrading in value chain-driven development to the livelihoods dimension in the following ways (e.g. Bair & Gereffi 2003; Barrientos et al. 2011; Barrientos et al. 2016; Lee et al. 2012; Vicol et al. 2018).

First, the basic understanding of the term ‘upgrading’ does not reflect horizontal hierarchies and unequal agency, such as the access to land or social networks within a chain. A multi-facetted use of the upgrading concept includes the acknowledgment of various upgrading trajectories, such as strategic downgrading, and asks for reasons not to ‘move up the chain’ (Ponte 2019; Ponte & Ewert 2009; Vicol et al. 2018).

Second, by moving past the firm-centric understanding of industrial economic upgrading through the four modes of process, products, functional, and inter-chain upgrading (Humphrey & Schmitz 2002; Ponte & Ewert 2009), scholars have increasingly included a social dimension to consider broader institutional structures that produce inequality and uneven power relations (Bolwig et al. 2010; Barrientos et al. 2011; Selwyn 2013). From a conceptual viewpoint, this paper applies an understanding of upgrading trajectories that may benefit smallholder farmers envisioned livelihoods. Hence, we consider the aspirational nature of either striving for stepping up or stepping out, as these indicate a desire for socio-economic upgrading. The critical question of who benefits from evolving value chains can be addressed through the conceptualisation of upgrading implications for livelihoods connected to chain segments, rather than by focusing on the chain as a whole. We therefore capture upgrading not solely through increases in agricultural income, but as the agency of farmers to carry out envisioned livelihood strategies. The acquisition of such agency can require an improved positionality within the value chain through know-how and social networks that does not lead to economic upgrading directly and measurably but causes relational improvement (Glückler & Panitz 2016; Krishnan 2017). Figure 1 summarises the conceptual framework of this study, linking livelihood strategies with dynamic upgrading in AVCs.

Figure 1. Dynamic livelihood strategies.

3. Methodology

During field work in Zambezi region and the capital Windhoek from September to November 2018, we applied a qualitative, exploratory research design that employed three methodological approaches (Table 1). To identify reasons for developing livelihood strategies and aspirations connected with value chain upgrading, the core of this study was a bottom-up, participatory method based on focus-group discussions (FGD) and go-along interviews (GA) with farmers in selected case study conservancies and non-conservancy settlements. Institutional influences and political visions were captured through semi-structured interviews (I) with stakeholders from both the agricultural and conservation sector. The inter-sectoral perspective is used to differentiate the impact of visions for both conservation and agricultural intensification on local livelihoods. By considering delimited territories – communal conservancies and non-conservancies – we take direct influences of institutions on livelihood strategies into account.

Table 1. Conducted interviews by category from September until November 2018.

Category	Approach and code	Number
Farmers and managers in conservancies	Go-along interview (GA_Cons1-3)	3
	FGD (FGD1-3-Cons-F/M)	11
	Interview (I_Cons1/2)	2
Farmers and extension officers in non-conservancies	Go-along interview (GA_NonCons1-3)	3
	FGD (FGD1-3-NonCons-F/M)	6
Consulting/distribution stakeholders	Semi-structured interview (I_Consult1/2)	2
Government stakeholders	Semi-structured interview (I_Gov1-5)	5
Lobby stakeholders	Semi-structured interview (I_Lobby1-4)	4
NGO stakeholders	Semi-structured interview (I_NGO1-5)	5
Total sum		41

In Namibia, communal farmers are distinguished from commercial farmers by being non-title deed holders and title deed holders, respectively. This contribution focusses on small-scale communal farmers, characterised through small land parcels where mixed crops are grown, such as rain-fed staple crops (maize, pearl millet), other traditional crops (beans, ground nuts, leafy vegetables), or fruits and vegetables (horticulture products) (Mendelsohn 2006). Individual communal farmers typically cultivate land parcels less than 5 ha in size (according to Mendelsohn (2006), the average size of cultivated land in Zambezi region amounts to 1.6 ha).

Semi-structured interviews were conducted in Windhoek and in Katima Mulilo, the capital of the Zambezi region, with stakeholders from national and regional government bodies, non-governmental-organisations (NGOs) and the private sector (consulting, lobbying, associations). These interviews, conducted in English, were recorded and later transcribed. To address the bottom-up perspective, FGDs were held with communal farmers in six case study areas: four conservancies (Sikunga, Bamunu, Dzoti, Mayuni) and two non-conservancy settlements (Sibbinda, Masokotwani, Figure 2) as a comparison group. Sikunga conservancy was chosen because it is the only locality where conservation directly overlaps with the regions’ only Green Scheme (commercial irrigation scheme) for agricultural intensification. The other three conservancies offered heterogeneous insights through their varied population sizes, age structures, income sources, and locations. The two comparison settlements located in proximity to the conservancies allowed for comparisons based not on geographical location but rather on institutional frameworks (Figure 2).

Figure 2. Case study area: communal conservancies and non-conservancy areas in Zambezi region.

The FGDs were conducted in the local languages, mainly Silozi. Permission for recording was obtained and anonymity and confidentiality is maintained. The sampling of the FGDs was undertaken via local gate keepers, according to the following criteria: balanced numbers of male and female farmers, range of ages, crops produced, and field sizes. The total number of participants was 155 (F = 73, M = 82), the group size ranged from 5 to 20, with a mean of 9. One co-researcher guided the discussion in the local language according to a structured interview guideline, while a second research assistant offered ad hoc translation to enable the researcher to intervene when necessary. The FGDs were recorded, translated, and transcribed by the research assistants. Through their participatory, interactive nature, FGDs generate more reflective and layered insights on research topics compared to one-on-one interviewing. Ideally, social control mechanisms within the rounds of discussion and a more diversified range of opinions contribute to a solid database (Onwuegbuzie et al. 2009).

Go-along interviews with successful farmers identified in the FGDs functioned as micro case studies. As a qualitative approach, the go-along employed elements from ethnography by combining interviewing with participant observation in everyday life practices. Through the joint observation and mutual activity, the strict question-answer settings are broken up and an atmosphere was created that better reflected the interviewee’s reality (Kusenbach 2003).

The material was analysed using qualitative content analysis according to Mayring (2000), applying structured deductive category application with the coding software MaxQDA. The coding categories reflect the guideline for the FGD, which was structured according to: livelihood wellbeing; AVC trajectory/farming activities; constraints; potentials; actors involved (associations, private businesses, governmental actors, NGOs, conservancy); future plans/aspirations.

4. Evidence from agricultural value chains in conservation areas in the Zambezi region

In the following, we first elaborate on the predominance of top-down visions and institutions related to CBNRM that impact the agricultural value chain and then uncover the corresponding impacts on livelihood strategies within and outside of conservancies in Zambezi.

4.1. Top-down visions and institutions of CBNRM

The Ministry of Environment, Forestry and Tourism (MEFT) and several NGOs supporting nature conservation create local institutions that predominantly shape development in conservancies. These conservation endeavours go back to the 1990s, following Namibia’s independence from South Africa. On the one hand, safari and hunting tourism has heavily benefitted from the growing number of conservancies and has managed to capture a substantial share of international value (Kalvelage et al. 2020). On the other hand, the change of land-use gradually caused a ‘crowding out’ of agricultural activities within conservancies (Gargallo 2020). Differing institutional frameworks and processes of commodification of natural resources, both within and outside of conservancies, as we argue, cause different possibilities for participating in AVCs and value chain upgrading.

Although conservancies aim at benefitting their members by generating income through natural resource use and tourism, farmers within conservancies complain about various constraints on agricultural production that can be linked to top-down conservation initiatives favouring tourism. Land-use restriction manifested in conservancy zoning plans, in particular, severely affect farmers, especially in accessing crucial inputs such as water. Conservancies are obliged to develop zoning maps, which define core wildlife areas, hunting areas, tourism areas, and settlement/cropping areas (NACSO 2017). Based on our findings, the dangers for power abuse with respect to land allocation, causes insecurities for farmers:

The conservancy management lied to us, they told us we would be able to plough and live with wild animals. The conservancy is paying little compared to the income I was going to get if I had harvested my crops. (FGD2-Bamunu-M)

Around here most of the fertile land is next to river and we cannot settle there anymore because it has become a core area for wildlife in this conservancy. (FGD2-Mayuni-F)

Stakeholders in the conservation sector stress the focus on nature conservation, wildlife, and tourism instead of supporting the AVC in conservancy areas (Table 2). Overlaps between CBNRM and agricultural intensification occur in Sikunga conservancy, where the only Green Scheme project in Zambezi region, Kalimbeza Rice Farm, is located. The conservancy management board states that six permanent workers are employed by the Green Scheme (FGD1-Sikunga, FGD2-Sikunga), resulting in the majority of community members not participating.

Table 2. Top-down visions of CBNRM, derived from FGDs and stakeholder interviews.

Aim	The focus is on natural resources, through our natural resources management, through tourism, what we can get out. So, the most emphasis in conservancies is on tourism and wildlife utilisation from which they can make money. But from other sources, let me just be honest it has not been explored. (I_Gov3)
	For me conservation is taking care, managing, and conserving of biodiversity and wildlife. The main aim of CBNRM is to maintain a healthy population of wildlife and at the same time assisting the communities to benefit from the natural resources, which they are living with in the area. So yes, it is for rural development, when you have wildlife; it has an economic value. (I_Gov3)
	So slowly but sure so that we are creating a market for people who are in the northern areas also. (…) Zambezi is an area that is 75 % rural and our economy is more driven by two, three sectors. One, the tourism sector plays a major part in terms of foreign income and in terms of employment creation. Agriculture is the backbone of the region in terms of regional economy. These sectors make Zambezi move a bit forward, reducing the level of unemployment. If the Green Schemes are all fully functional, I see seasonal employment absorbing a number of youth in Zambezi. I see the level of unemployment being drastically reduced and I see the wellbeing of people being improved. Again, if the tourism sector like now and our wildlife conservationist is doing very well. (I_Gov4)
Implementation	With conservation, we talk about many things that should be done within the conservancy. We talk about tourism, agriculture, or whatever. We really want to see tourism within the conservancy, seeing tourists coming to visit their places, to see whatever culture they have, whatever species they have, whatever landscape. (I_Conserv2)
	(…) if you keep those areas for agriculture, hunting and tourism it can work. It only becomes a problem when one wants to be hot-headed and decides to go plough in the tourism zone or he wants to go and plough in the hunting zones. (I_Gov3)

Table 3 summarises the amount of income generated in the case study conservancies in 2017, including the source of income and the distribution of benefits, according to financial data gathered by the Namibian Association of CBNRM Support Organizations (NACSO). The uneven distribution becomes evident when firstly looking at differences in the share of benefits, which are distributed among the members between the four conservancies. In Bamunu and Mayuni, roughly a quarter of the income generated is used for benefits, whereas Sikunga only distributes about 4% of its income to members. Second, how money is spent plays a major role in members’ satisfaction with the conservancy management. Corruption of conservancy management bodies in the process of income distribution is mentioned as a constraint of development within conservancies. Therefore, some communities are hesitant to establish a conservancy: ‘Having a conservancy doesn’t guarantee that the resources or benefits will be for the community. The community is just like a shepherd looking after those animals but, the larger shares go to the hands of the “mafias”’ (FGD2-Sibbinda-M).

Table 3. Accumulated income of case study conservancies and income distribution in 2017. Own calculations, based on NACSO (2017).

Conservancy	Total income (in NAD)	Hunting	Tourism	Plant utilisation	Crafts	Other
		Income sources (in %)
Bamunu	808.339	97,6				2,4
Dzoti	1.384.300	100,0
Mayuni	764.800	60,1	35,5	3,8	0,2	0,4
Sikunga	605.000	88,4		0,8		10,8
	Total benefits (in NAD)	Total share of benefits	Cash benefits	TA payment	Community projects*	HWC offsets
		Benefits distributed (in %)
Bamunu	258.641	23,6		23,8	53,0	23,2
Dzoti	232.656	18,0	4,3	19,3	63,5	12,9
Mayuni	282.196	22,6	41,5	45,2	13,3
Sikunga	27.500	3,6		72,7	27,3

* including funeral payments.

A proclaimed goal of conservancies is the harmonious co-existence of humans and wildlife. To counteract impacts of increased Human-Wildlife-Conflicts (HWC), such as destruction of fields, attacks on cattle, or even humans, the conservancy compensates losses caused by wildlife through HWC offsets. Those payments are a crucial instrument to achieve legitimacy of conservation in agrarian contexts, and to increase satisfaction and support among farmers who suffer losses by virtue of their location within conservancies. Only Bamunu and Dzoti invested in HWC offsets, as shown in Table 3. Nonetheless, these measures are not sufficient to compensate losses and disadvantages associated with living and farming near wildlife (FGD2-Bamunu; FGD2-Mayuni). Finally, the income in all four conservancies is almost exclusively generated through hunting and other tourism, showing that conservancies largely depend on the tourism sector.

Farmers in conservancies state that there is a lack of support for agriculture (FGD1-Bamunu; FGD2-Sikunga). One reason is the administrative affiliation of territories gazetted as conservancies. They are under the umbrella of the MEFT, supported by NGOs, which give nature conservation priority over agricultural development (I_Gov5; I_NGO3; I_NGO4).

Table 4 summarises the effect mechanisms identified in the implementation of top-down policies and visions both within and outside of conservancies. In the following subsection, we address how these mechanisms affect livelihood strategies and thus possibilities for upgrading.

Table 4. Generalised effect mechanisms of small-scale agriculture, derived from FGDs, go-along interviews and stakeholder interviews.

	CBNRM	Non-CBNRM
Benefits	Employment possibilities in tourism, tourism revenues, employment possibilities by conservancy, distribution of benefits (limited potential)	Access to land, access water from rivers, proximity to markets, financial start-ups by government
Constraints	HWC, decline in yield, limited access to land and water due to zoning plan, distance to markets, dissociation from actors in agricultural sector	HWC increase in areas neighbouring conservancies, limited attention by NGOs
Stakeholders	MEFT, IRDNC, NACSO, private tourism enterprises, other NGOs	Ministry of Agriculture, Water and Land Reform, Zambezi Regional Council, private food processing companies (millers, supermarkets), extension officers

4.2. Impacts on livelihood strategies

Within conservancies, constraints in AVC upgrading and thus stepping up strategies occur especially in the production and marketing segments (Table 5). In the production segment, accessing inputs is the main limiting factor (FGD-Bamunu/Dzoti/Sikunga/Mayuni). The management zoning plans resulted in relocations of farmers from their previous crop lands when these were located near water bodies or forests. These areas are potentially suitable for irrigated agriculture but are also best suited for tourism (FGD1-Mayuni; FGD2-Sikunga). The increased HWCs have caused losses in yields (FGD-Dzoti/Mayuni). Therefore, AVC upgrading through stepping up – invest in agricultural activities and diversification – is barely visible. This prohibits farmers within conservancies to upgrade their positionality in supply channels and formalised value chains and puts them in a (perceived) position of comparative disadvantage compared to farmers outside of conservancies.

Table 5. Expressions of bottom-up perceptions on possible livelihood strategies, derived from FGDs.

Hanging in

You can have degrees and diplomas yet you remain unemployed. This is why we teach our children activities like farming as backup if there are no stable jobs. (FGD2-Dzoti-M)

I am not satisfied but we just do it (farming) because there is nothing we can do. (FGD2-Dzoti-M)

Animals are also increasing because we are now a conservancy. This has resulted in low harvests and more conflicts than before. (FGD2-Mayuni-M)

We have a problem in farming. I can plan to plough more, but the wild animals we have in the conservancy are damaging our crops. The animals are destroying our crops and we hardly get anything in the end. Our livelihoods keep going down. (FGD1-Mayuni-M)

Stepping up

There’s an association, you can register and sell to them. People with gardens then sell their vegetables to local supermarkets. They look at the quality of your products, if it’s fine then you can deliver to them. (FGD3-Dzote-M)

Having a good living standard or livelihood is when I can produce enough food for my family from my field. And I can make money from my field. (FGD1-Dzoti-F)

In terms of seeds, we don’t get them on time and this pulls our cultivation activities backwards. (…) Last week I was at Agribank to apply for a loan. I wasn’t successful because the requirement is to have a permanent house structure instead of a mud house. Now how can we as farmers develop when we cannot have access to these loans? (FGD2-Mayuni-M)

Stepping out

Tourism activities are also creating jobs in the community. You can have a job and still be a farmer. Once you retire from that job and move back to village, if you never farmed how will you live? (FGD3-Dzoti-M)

We are now prohibited to set foot in core areas where one would get attacked by wild animals. Lodges are also beneficial because the youth are employed in these facilities and with the little that they get they are able to support themselves financially. (FGD2-Mayuni-F)

The geographical reach of AVCs within conservancies is mostly restricted to neighbouring villages. The marketing segment is thus limited to selling occasional surplus on local markets with low value added. Agricultural inputs, such as chemical pesticides or herbicides, are not accessible as there is simply no market in the rural areas and insufficient financial capital. Therefore, only organic fertiliser (manure) is used on the fields (GA_Con1/2).

The quality differs, imported crops have high quality because they use fertilisers, us local farmers cannot afford to buy fertilisers and hybrid seeds because they are expensive but when we sell, we sell at a cheaper price. (FGD1-Bamunu-F)

Moreover, farmers complain that they are unable to increase production due to unreliable and expensive transportation resulting in limited market access. Thus, farmers aspire to upgrade their activities by sourcing higher quality inputs and accessing larger markets in the city. However, stepping up strategies through upgrading agricultural activities that go beyond the production segment of the value chain are hardly possible within conservancies due to the constraints described above.

The strategy of stepping out of agriculture is rarely mentioned. The few non-agricultural income-generating activities include employment in tourism enterprises or conservancy management boards (e.g. as cleaning staff, ranger, area representatives), or small vendors/services (e.g. hair braiding, sewing, selling sweets). However, permanent jobs are rare, resulting in dependency on crop farming: ‘For us, farming is everything we have, that’s how we maintain our livelihoods’ (FGD1-Mayuni-M). But apart from farming for reasons of necessity, farming is also seen as an important part of local culture and tradition that has been passed on for generations (FGD-Dzoti/Sibbinda). This cultural dynamic helps to explain the predominating aspiration for stepping up through AVC upgrading rather than stepping out altogether.

The presence of poor farmers in rural areas of the region depending on agriculture is a fact that the regional government is well aware of:

Of course, we have the small-scale farmers if we were going to go in the tourism way, will they be benefiting from it? Would there be food security from their side? Obviously, the answer is no. (…) Therefore, the two must run parallel, so we must have tourism on one side and agricultural production on the other side. But if you say forget about agricultural production, we must just have tourism alone – that would be a tragedy for the poor. (I_Gov4)

Regional decision-makers hence acknowledge the problematic aspects of developing the tourism sector in conservancies without providing alternative livelihood bases for farmers. This somehow contradicts the dominance of tourism and CBNRM-related visions for developing the Zambezi region, meaning that only a small share of the society is empowered to upgrade their livelihoods and the majority of farmers is excluded.

By contrast, farmers in non-conservancy areas express more freedom to choose the locations for their agricultural activities, as land is not allocated to certain uses, as in conservancies’ zoning. Contact to regional lead actors (local supermarket and an association for farmers), which are mostly located in Katima Mulilo, the only urban centre in the region, is crucial for developing successful stepping up strategies.

Whenever opportunities of stepping up arise, farmers would indeed dynamically adjust their livelihood strategy, e.g. changing from traditional rain fed crops to horticulture, establishing irrigation systems to increase productivity, or negotiate verbal contracts with buyers such as supermarkets (GA_NonCon1). Stepping up strategies that continue with existing practices of diversification of crops towards horticulture production was mentioned to be most successful.

5. Development trajectories and resulting policy implications

Based on our findings presented above, we sketch out four development trajectories that are related to the various strategies and derive how the pursuit of envisioned strategies can be better supported by government initiatives. Figure 3 illustrates examples of how livelihood strategies of hanging in, stepping up and stepping out are carried out in the case study region and how these can be linked to value chain participation and upgrading: first, a conservation lock-in which contains hanging in due to locational constrains of being in a conservancy; second, an intensification lock-in, meaning hanging in through integration into a Green Scheme, which was only described by two farmers in Sikunga conservancy; third, evolving AVC which entails stepping up aspirations towards diversifying agricultural production and using assets to improve activities; and fourth evolved conservation, stepping out through the rare scenario of leaving agriculture and finding stable employment in the tourism sector.

Figure 3. Examples of livelihood strategies in regard to participation and value chain integration.

However, a recent study by Kalvelage et al. (2020), estimates the employment of tourism in Zambezi conservancies at 566 jobs. This represents a marginal share of 1.4% of the total labour force of 41 600 people in the region (NSA 2019). The tourism sector’s capacity is thus very limited to reduce the dependency on agriculture (see also Gargallo 2020). The political goals of providing alternative income sources through tourism and conservation in order to decrease dependency on crop production in conservancies – as is also the case with intensification measures through Green Schemes – have not sufficiently materialised on the ground.

Although livelihood strategies mostly aim at upgrading related to the AVC, e.g. through contract farming to supply lodges or collective action in associations, livelihoods within conservancies – due to several constraints outlined above – remain oriented towards subsistence farming and local surplus-selling. Regardless the support of market-based CBNRM initiatives, agriculture-based livelihoods are still dominant. Therefore, strengthening AVCs within conservancies is necessary.

Scholars agree that conservation is a significant constraint for agricultural development (Nyambe & Belete 2018; Gargallo 2020). This study provides an explanation for the exclusionary effects: commercial agriculture that would allow farmers to integrate into regional AVCs and lead towards relational upgrading is merely possible due to land insecurities, restricted water access and HWC. The resulting strategies of hanging in are not addressed by CBNRM initiatives, they rather create institutions that hinder rural development in the Zambezi region and can therefore be described as ‘a placebo type of relief to the unsustainable livelihoods’ (Nyambe & Belete 2018:2). The slowly emerging research on the importance of agricultural livelihoods within conservancies pinpoint towards a crucial reason for the rise of critical voices that contradict the predominantly positive narrative of CBNRM as an empowerment tool of rural communities (e.g. Lenggenhager 2018).

On the one hand, farmers within and outside of conservancies target a stepping up strategy, which is also envisioned by agricultural policies. On the other hand, these aspirations could, to a large extent, not be put into practice, as the production and marketing segments in AVCs are limited within conservancies. The fact that the larger share of farmers within conservancies does not directly participate in its benefit sharing schemes (Table 3) and can therefore neither step up nor step out, confirms that development interventions through upgrading are ‘necessarily exclusionary’ (Vicol et al. 2018:35). Therefore, top-down initiatives need to acknowledge and include various forms of agricultural activities as livelihood strategies in multi-sectoral and participatory implementation schemes.

Moreover, land-use restrictions and HWCs disconnect farmers from elaborated AVCs, production intensification, and food security, contradicting the government’s vision of increasing domestic food production and commercialising smallholders. This finding, however, is consistent with development goals propagated by the MEFT or conservation NGOs that exclude agricultural development because it contradicts land-use requirements for nature conservation (Table 2). This calls for harmonising top-down visions with local realities and livelihood needs through cooperation between stakeholders in both sectors to establish a coherent, participatory policy-making that integrates various sectors and development trajectories.

Finally, we characterise decision-making of communal farmers as a logical, strategic response to exogenous influences and frictions in policy-making that limit their scope of action. The seemingly passive notion of hanging in can rather be seen as a strategic assessment – or strategic downgrading – of the situation based on experience and a limitation of farming activities adapted to the unstable institutional environment. Vicol et al. (2018) point to the fact that farm households do not always follow neoclassical economic principles such as profit maximisation, which helps to make sense of the resistance that many farmers in conservancies have to stepping out of agricultural activities. Hence, the economic dimension of upgrading is not necessarily prioritised by farmers compared to a cultural and social dimension (Barrientos et al. 2011).

Moreover, as argued by Hazell et al. (2010), due to changing political agendas and unpredictable dynamics in emerging economies, farming trajectories seldom pronounced as a linear path of growing and expanding, but rather remain a small-scale structure, which our results clearly show. The answer may be an alternative paradigm in agriculture to remain ‘small’, meaning to retain a small-scale structure and remain autonomous (Dorward 2009). This would, in turn, need an incremental institutional change in order to support participation and representation of smallholders endogenously, e.g. through collective action, to overcome dependency on international donors and trade imports (Andersson & Gabrielsson 2012; Dorward 2009; Naziri et al. 2014).

For this study, the ways that the four dominating development trajectories are interlinked, indicates that stepping up strategies are not automatically achieved through value chain upgrading; nor are stepping out strategies possible via the mere existence of alternative income sources, such as tourism in conservancies. It is more a question of agency and participation in the implementation of political visions that can lead to evolved positions within AVCs and inclusive, beneficial CBNRM institutions.

6. Summary and conclusion

Coming back to the Prime Minister’s statement on the promising development of both agriculture and tourism in the Zambezi region, the current nexus of initiatives and local strategies does not indicate the realisation of this vision.

Identifying interrelations between the two main development pathways, which mostly worsen the positionality of farmers within AVCs, contributed to a nuanced understanding of the reasons for failure in the implementation of political visions. The study has shown that up until now, the broader development implications of CBNRM visions and the contradictory goals of intensifying agriculture and expanding value chains, have not materialised in the Zambezi region. These unintended links between both sectors could be uncovered through the lens of aspired and achieved livelihood upgrading or downgrading.

Summarising, the findings revealed that farmers do aim at stepping up their livelihoods through intensification of agricultural produce, diversification of crops, or additional off-farm businesses. Subsistence farming for food security coupled with strategic surplus-selling on local or regional markets was identified as a predominant livelihood strategy. Although most farmers did envision stepping up strategies, upgrading their farming activities or diversifying was seldom possible. The results have shown that the two paths must be considered as intertwined rather than disconnected in order to harmonise the demands on resources by a variety of actors that come together in conservancy spaces (tourists, farmers, conservationists, flora and fauna, traders etc.). Otherwise, the high political expectations will not become reality.

Future policies could support existing local networks following a place-based approach. Here, the potential of collective action, contract farming, and backward and forward linkages for input access and marketisation needs to be explored further (e.g. Fold & Neilson 2016). As opportunities to step out of agriculture are limited in the case study region, a policy aiming at ‘accumulation from below’ (Aliber & Hall 2012) could strengthen local or regional AVCs without preventing farmers from pursuing farming, which is a major cultural and identity-forming activity.

Concluding, it must be recognised that CBNRM is a prominent and promising development tool in many countries in southern Africa. The framework and outcome of this analysis can be relevant for academia and practitioners beyond the borders of Namibia as it stresses the importance of integrating local resident’s perspectives and other, interrelated economic sectors. While this study’s complex, multi-layered actor setting shows certain patterns influencing livelihood strategies, the findings are not representative beyond the Zambezi region. The bottom-up approach considering aspirations of local actors, and contrasting those with top-down policies, initiatives and visions is necessarily subjective. Hence, we captured the perspective of farmers who feel disconnected from top-down intensification and conservation attempts and examined reasons for their discontent. Acknowledging the importance of space-specific local institutional settings and historical preconditions more empirical examples are needed on non-firm actors and horizontal – social and spatial – dynamics in other regions of sub-Saharan Africa which are shaped by nature conservation to identify beneficial development strategies associated with such top-down interventions.

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].