Agriculture & mining can co-exist: Lessons from Russia’s Dalur Mine for Namibia’s Leonardville
In the arid heartlands where water is life and the soil sustains communities, the tension between agriculture and mining often feels irreconcilable.
In the arid heartlands where water is life and the soil sustains communities, the tension between agriculture and mining often feels irreconcilable.
Farmers in places like Namibia’s Omaheke Region, reliant on the precious Stampriet Aquifer, voice fears of groundwater contamination, disruption of their livelihoods, and irreversible damage to the land that feeds their families and livestock.
Yet, a compelling case study from Russia’s Kurgan region demonstrates that these two pillars of economic development can not only coexist but thrive together through responsible innovation.
Rosatom’s Dalur mine, a pioneer in in-situ leach (ISL) uranium recovery, stands as living proof. During our frank engagements, farmers operating at the very doorstep of the Dalur operations in the Dolmatovsky district report that their agricultural activities have continued without disruption since the mine began.
Wheat fields, gardens, and livestock thrive alongside the mine, with local producers even supplying food to mine operations.
The landscape remains largely intact, with no massive open pits and no towering waste dumps, because ISL leaves the ore in the ground. In simple terms, a leaching solution is injected through wells to dissolve the uranium, which is then pumped to the surface for processing in a closed-loop system.
This is not blind optimism. It is an observable reality: an agricultural hub co-existing with modern and SMART mining.
Traditional mining scars the earth. ISL, particularly with SMART mining advancements, minimises that footprint. Real-time sensors and automated systems monitor water movement, pressure, pH, flow rates, and any potential excursions of solutions beyond the wellfield.
If anomalies are detected, operations can halt instantly. Monitoring wells surround the production zones, providing layered safeguards above, below, and around the target area.
This is seemingly a reality that those opposing the project do not want to see: that there are very strict protocols in place to mitigate any disaster. This isn’t theory; it is being done.
Rosatom’s experience with Dalur and similar sites shows that after mining, natural geochemical processes and microbial activity help restore the aquifer.
The technology has operated for decades with stringent environmental monitoring, no radiation incidents among staff, and full integration into local rural economies.
Critics will always attempt to throw cold water on progress. Some voices, including institutions whose farmers in the Leonardville area directly benefited from exploration activities and associated economic activity, spread selective narratives.
Yet fair, transparent sharing of information, grounded in science and real-world outcomes from operating ISL mines in Russia, Kazakhstan, Australia and the USA, is what communities deserve.
Fears must be addressed with data, not dismissed; but neither should proven coexistence be ignored out of ideology.
For economic development in a relatively small community like Leonardville, as highlighted by groups such as SAUMA and Conservation Namibia, the minerals beneath the ground represent a rare opportunity for genuine development, not promises of “continued generational farmworking”.
Namibia’s people have every right to benefit from their natural resources responsibly. A project like the proposed Headspring Investments operation near Leonardville could deliver transformative gains.
During engagements in Leonardville, one must look at the stark reality. What do the people of Leonardville go back to, and what do opposing farmers go back to?
The community of Leonardville goes back to their hardships; they go back to their joblessness because there is just not enough opportunity for all.
The farmers who fight against the project climb into their Land Cruisers, which they bought with exploration money when exploration was being done on their farms.
For them, it is okay that the status quo remains as is. Unfortunately, for the community of Leonardville, that cannot be the case. They see this mine as their self-determined right to be lifted out of poverty.
When speaking of the economic development of a relatively small community, I would like to use the Witvlei abattoir as an example. For those of us who lived through the Witvlei abattoir years, we perhaps lived through the most exciting years of the region.
That abattoir gave a breath of life not only to Witvlei, not only to Gobabis, but to the entire Omaheke Region. The communities had stable jobs, farming was booming, and auctions were the place to be every Friday and second Wednesday.
Every Friday in Gobabis, a truck from the abattoir would arrive in Gobabis and sell affordable and delicious “Sop bene” in their very famous blue plastics.
The whole region thrived because of the economic development of a relatively small community. So indeed, Leonardville also deserves the opportunity to create its own beautiful stories.
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