Otjimboyo Community Garden - Alternative Food Security at Brandberg

INVESTING IN ALTERNATIVE LIVELIHOODS - Phase 01

Among our most rewarding projects is investing in improving livelihoods of people living with wildlife, creating alternative food source and income models. We are assisting the Otjimboyo Conservancy to become a model project for food production in an arid area. The capacity building and empowerment training provides desperately needed skills and motivation to the inhabitants to consider their plight from a perspective of opportunity, rather than despair.
This project is a collaborative venture between the Conservation Film Foundation Trust and the Otjimboyo Conservancy Management Committee. The project was started with a grant from the Environmental Investment Funds based in Windhoek, Namibia.
Additional funding for project sustainability and expansion is essential to the success of this initiative.
It will furthermore be the first time where the plight of the community is documented on video, and the solutions implemented shared with the world.

Otjimboyo is a rural communal conservancy in the Kunene Region of Namibia, with almost 400 registered members living in an arid landscape, largely semi-desert, and sparse savannah, with less than 100mms average annual rainfall.

With financial assistance of the Environmental Investment Fund the development of a Community Garden was initiated to mitigate some negative effects of a prolonged drought and other climate related stressors, improve community adaptive capacity, and provide alternative food resources and income opportunities.

The Otjimboyo Community Garden opens new avenues of adaptation to living in a desert landscape, enhances resilience potential, while contributing to food security, self-reliance, and biodiversity conservation across ecosystems.
Otjimboyo aims at becoming a model of food production in an arid area, supplying surrounding lodges and villages with fresh produce, and deriving an income thereof.

The sub-optimal water quality in the Daures landscape requires a selection of crops relatively resilient to saline water, without placing excessive burden on the scarce water resources.
Being mindful of harmonious human wildlife co-existence, great care was taken in identifying a suitable location for the community garden and providing a reliable water supply for animal consumption and drip- irrigation, as well as securing sufficient space for future expansion.

In phase two of the Otjimboyo community garden project, any additional funding will be applied to further improve project sustainability through market development, future infrastructure expansion, crop diversification, and additional learning and knowledge sharing needed to effectively run a successful community garden.

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