Drought and survival in rural Namibia

Abstract

The 1992 drought in southern Africa reduced national grain harvests to less than half of 1991 levels, caused substantial livestock mortality and severely compromised rural livelihoods. This paper disaggregates the impact of the drought on three vulnerable socio‐economic groups in Namibia — smallholder crop farmers, livestock rearers and commercial farmworkers. A modified entitlement framework is adopted: as well as examining entitlement‐generating strategies (including credit, overlooked by Sen), the paper also considers ‘indirect’ entitlement‐protecting strategies, such as dietary change, consumption rationing and demographic adjustments at the household level. Although Namibia did not experience a decline in aggregate food availability during the drought — commercial imports plus food aid offset the production shock — hunger and malnutrition did affect certain groups who suffered ‘direct entitlement declines’ (crop farmers), ‘trade entitlement declines’ (livestock rearers) or ‘derived destitution’ (farmworkers), and were unable to secure adequate food through alternative sources such as extended family support, credit or food aid. Namibia's experience confirms the dangers of supply‐side analyses of food security. When the composition of a country's food supply changes dramatically, there are likely to be some groups whose food security is negatively affected because they cannot be guaranteed access to available food, even when supplies are sufficient in aggregate terms.