Two unemployed men from Shañondho Village in the Mukwe Constituency of the Kavango East Region have planted five hectares of sunflowers as a way to keep themselves occupied.

Faustinus Muthitu and Thomas Mayira have converted land they would normally use to plant mahangu into sunflower fields in an effort to earn an income.

They started planting the sunflowers in December 2025 and are now in the process of harvesting the seeds. 

They have so far harvested over 2000 kilograms of sunflower seeds, but they have not found a buyer yet. 

They are, however, planning to approach the Shadikongoro green scheme to see if their product will be accepted. 

The men say the plan in the future is to acquire some funding that would enable them to acquire equipment to process sunflower oil. 

"For us in this village, we usually use to get sunflower oil from the shop. If we start producing our oil here, our village, even if you don't have money to go to Divundu, you can go to the factory and buy from us," says Mayira. 

At the moment, the duo cannot afford to hire people to help them in the sunflower fields but are hopeful that with enough support, they will be able to hire some locals. 

"Normally here, people are not doing anything, so if I could get that help, I could maybe employ three or four to reduce the unemployment in our nation. The important thing for this is just for us; we can keep ourselves busy doing it instead of going to steal," stressed Muthitu.

While they are working on finding funds, Mayira is experimenting with making a machine that will assist in extracting oil from sunflower seeds. 

"This one is an expeller machine. So this one is the one that is going to help me to extract the oil from the seed. As you can see, it is incomplete. I did not finish making it. This one is for a car. It's shocking."

Muthitu and Mayira say sunflowers are not that difficult to plant. The only challenge is the fact that their fields are not fenced off, making it easier for livestock to enter, causing damage to the plants. 

They are, however, calling on the Namibian youth to engage in farming and gardening in an effort to attain food sufficiency.