Krumhuk agricultural training centre opened

THE newly opened private agricultural training centre at Aris south of Windhoek will retain all 23 students for a training course after all of them successfully passed their three-month preparation course.

‘We have decided to keep all of them for the whole of this year instead of trimming them down to 15 participants,’ said Ulf-Dieter Voigts, owner of the Aris hotel premises and initiator of the training centre. Voigts farms nearby on the farm Krumhuk.’Only next year will be a fresh intake of 25 newcomers to do the preliminary three-month course and due to space constraints we can only continue with the planned 15 students each year to complete the 24-month training,’ Voigts said at the official inauguration on Wednesday. The old Aris Hotel, 25 kilometres south of Windhoek, has been transformed into the Agricultural Training Centre Krumhuk (ATCK), where practical training is given to farmworkers who want to develop themselves to the level of farm managers. Members of the Windhoek Farmers Association support the centre with donations and are also giving lectures in practical farming, bookkeeping, maintenance of tools and infrastructure, management, rotational grazing and household management to female students. Fees are N$300 per month per student.Education Minister Nangolo Mbumba expressed his appreciation towards the initiators of this project.’Namibia needs a trained workforce and I hope that such practical training initiatives can be emulated in other regions,’ Mbumba said.The Minister, parents of the students and invited guests were shown around the premises.Plans are in the pipeline to offer animal husbandry, a vegetable garden and a farm stall to sell vegetables and diary products at Aris.Andreas Fellner, a teacher from Germany, was appointed as fulltime director of the ATCK at the beginning of the year. He previously taught at the Windhoek Waldorf School.