THE TURNING POINT | Black Agricultural Success: An Illusion?

As a Black Namibian entrepreneur, I have often wondered whether we are asking the right questions about economic empowerment.

We speak proudly of Black success stories. We celebrate the entrepreneurs who have built companies, created jobs and entered sectors historically closed to the majority of Namibians. We celebrate Black professionals in boardrooms, Black politicians in government and Black executives leading major institutions.

But when we examine the ownership of some of the most fundamental productive assets in our economy, a difficult question emerges: Are we really transforming the structure of our economy, or are we merely celebrating exceptions to a system that remains largely unchanged?

Agriculture forces us to confront this question directly.

In Namibia, white farmers continue to dominate the ownership of commercial agricultural land. In South Africa, white individuals similarly own the overwhelming majority of identifiable individually owned agricultural land. The statistics are not merely numbers. Behind them lies a deeper question about economic power, intergenerational wealth and who controls the productive assets capable of creating wealth for decades, even centuries.