Every litre of Engen petrol adds five cents to drought relief through Dare to Care
Every litre of petrol sold at an Engen service station anywhere in Namibia over the next three months will earn drought-stricken farmers five cents as a contribution to the Dare to Care fund. In this way Engen intends to raise at least N$3 million for the fund.
“Our target is to raise N$3 million to help the country’s commercial and subsistence farmers in this hour of extreme need,” said the fuel retailer’s Managing Director, Christian Li.
The performance-based drought assistance was announced at a special ceremony in Windhoek last week Friday. Present were representatives of the commercial and the emerging farmers unions, the Association of Service Station Owners, and Mr Li of Engen.
The Dare to Care fund was established in 2000 by members of the agricultural sector to assist victims of veld fires. Since then it has broadened its assistance to include, amongst others, victims of floods and farm attacks, and helping San communities across the country to transition to conventional agriculture.
The fund has set a target of N$10 million in drought-assistance funds which are implemented through a 20% subsidy on a range of animal feeds. This form of financial assistance enables farmers to round off marketable animals to generate income to improve their cash flow.
“We are exceptionally grateful for the support of Engen Namibia and hope that Namibian motorists will go to Engen to refuel so that we can have maximum donations for these three months. We also hope that other Namibian businesses follow suit in helping to alleviate the burden of the drought on our farmers,” stated the fund’s administrators.
“As Engen, we hope that our 5 cents per litre of fuel sold initiative will help them achieve their target and make feed more affordable to the farmers,” said Li.
The Dare to Care fund is a cooperation between the Namibia Emerging Commercial Farmers Union (NECFU), the Namibia Agricultural Union (NAU) and a large number of private sector companies such as Bank Windhoek, FNB Namibia, Feedmaster, Old Mutual, Namibia Breweries Ltd, Cymot and Agra.
“In spite of the mounting challenges in the face of no rain, I am optimistic that the coming together of numerous Namibian stakeholders will achieve a substantial measure of success in assisting our farmers in this difficult time,” concluded Li.
Caption: From the left, Rupert Harmse of the Assocation of Service Station Owners, Dr Ndahafa Nghifindaka-Tjiuongua, President of the Namibia Emerging Commercial Farmers Union, Christian Li, the Managing Director of Engen, Ryno van der Merwe, President of the Namibia Agricultural Union, Daniel Mahua, the Executive Manager of NECFU and Roelie Venter, the Executive Manager of the NAU.
