Survival of the Poorest: Urban Migration and Food Security
in Namibia
2000-12-22
Keane Shore
[Photo: Millet in rural Namibia piled high after harvest.]
Urban food security in Namibia may be more dependent on informal ties to rural relatives than
other survival strategies such as urban agriculture.
Bruce Frayne, a PhD student at Queens University in Canada, says the experiences of migrants to
Windhoek, Namibia's capital and largest city, show that the urban poor rely on rural relatives to eat
and survive. Frayne is a 1999 recipient of the AGROPOLIS Award, a graduate research prize in
urban agriculture that is funded and managed by the International Development Research Centre,
on behalf of the Support Group on Urban Agriculture.
Rethinking poverty
According to Frayne, an urban regional planner from Namibia, his research suggests that poverty
and food issues don't so much affect regions the traditional view as they do particular
occupational groups, classes of households, and individuals. His findings could have implications
for the development of food security policies in Namibia and other countries.
"Despite the overall trend toward a more urban society, the dynamic between the rural and urban
areas remains fluid," he says. "The question really is, if urbanization [continues] as it seems to be,
and the urban economy is not booming, how are these people going to [survive] in the long run?"
Demographic trends
Namibia borders the Atlantic Ocean in southwest Africa. The Namib Desert forms a third of its
area, and the Kalahari Desert another third, making drought endemic as much as 80 % of the
country's food is imported. In the last decade, the proportion of rural Namibians has fallen from 70
to 65 %. It is estimated that the population of Windhoek will double between 1996 and 2004.
While Namibia has a relatively high gross national income for a developing country (US$1,960 in
1994), it is one of the world's most inequitable societies the richest 5 % of the population
accounts for 44 % of all private consumption.
With funding from the AGROPOLIS program, Frayne looked at how rural-urban linkages affect
urban food security, an issue which had been largely neglected. Katatura, the site of his research, is
the former black African township on Windhoek's outskirts. Katatura and Windhoek share a rocky,
arid basin about 5,500 feet above sea level, ringed by mountains. Much of Katatura's housing is
municipal, consisting of small two-room dwellings built by the country's former South African
administration.
Signs of rural migration
"There are areas that consist of fairly middle-class structures, gardens, and the like. And beyond
the rim of what one now calls the 'old township' are shanties," says Frayne. None of these existed
when Namibia was declared independent in 1990 they are a visible measure of rural migration
into Windhoek.
"The opportunity to get into the wage sector, to make money, to buy a car, to have a house, and
those sorts of things is what many people are after," he notes. But these goals are out of the
question in economically depressed rural areas, although food is more readily available.
Jobs scarce
But in the rapidly expanding urban areas, jobs are now scarcer than applicants. While there are
enough success stories to encourage migration, it is usually hope, not reality, that attracts migrants.
Once they arrive in cities, the hopeful remain, but they survive on care packages from rural
relatives. "The sheer number of people coming in, compared to the expansion of the urban
economy in Windhoek, would suggest that there must be an awful lot of people who are not
actually earning an income," says Frayne.
His survey of about 300 migrant households suggests that informally transferring food into urban
areas is an important way of coping. More than half of the households surveyed received
'significant' amounts of Namibia's staple grain, millet, from rural relatives often between 10 and
50 kilograms at a time. They also received other cultivated and wild foods, meat, poultry, and fish.
More than half said the food from rural relatives was 'important' or 'very important' to their
survival another 10 % deemed it critical.
Migration of the poor
"There's a whole sector of society that doesn't have the cash to go and buy these goods from a
supermarket. They're relying on their own households back in the rural areas to supply them.
Poverty in the rural areas is really migrating to the urban areas and remaining there. As yet, there is
no real transition from a poor rural state to a wealthier urban state," he stresses.
"Something that is very interesting and important is the extent to which urban households have
relatives and/or friends back in the rural areas. Those sorts of social relations translate not only into
the transport of food and other kinds of commodities, but also the movement of family members --
like children getting sent back to the rural areas for extended periods of schooling. It really is quite
a symbiotic process."
Fragile symbiosis
While this symbiosis fuels Namibia's urbanization, it is relatively fragile, adds Frayne. It would
take little economic change an increase in fuel costs for example to reduce the flow of food
packages. "Given that it is part of this process of urbanization anyway, the main policy implication
is that authorities are going to have to start looking quite seriously at how people can outside
the formal system promote their own food security," he says.
According to Frayne, Namibia should study the impact of migration on its rural environment, to
find out whether further migration may affect food supplies to poorer city households. He also sees
a need for research on systems to conserve water, to sustain small-scale urban household
agriculture.
Urban agriculture
"I'm particularly interested in the urban side of this, and how urban authorities can proactively
foster opportunities for urban agriculture that would help to feed their populations," he states.
"Poverty is not good for anybody not for the people who are in it or for everybody else, since
you tend to have a rise in social instability and the kinds of problems associated with that."
Keane J. Shore is an Ottawa-based writer and editor. (Photo. B. Frayne)
If you have any comments about this article, please contact info@idrc.ca .
For more information:
Bruce Frayne, Department of Geography, Queens University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada, K7L
3N6; Tel: (613) 533-6030; Fax: (613) 533-6122; Email: 8gbf@qlink.queensu.ca
Links to explore ...
Investigating the Impact of Urban Agriculture in Harare, Zimbabwe, by Joan Brickhill
Surveying Urban Agriculture in Jordan, by Doug Alexander
Urban Gardening in Haiti, by John Eberlee
For Hunger-proof Cities: Sustainable Urban Food Systems
Urban Agriculture in West Africa: Contributing to Food Security and Urban Sanitation
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