Onjose Farmers Cooperative in the Omaheke Region has set up a new facility to provide livestock supplements and vaccines to farmers.

The cooperative provides agricultural training opportunities to farmers as well as organizing market days for them.

Speaking at a meeting with farmers at Talismanus, the Chairperson of Onjose Farmers Cooperative, Ismael Ndjoze, said addressing challenges facing the agricultural sector should be a collective effort.

Ndjoze said farmers are faced with a high cost of input, including supplements and vaccinations, which hampers the quality of livestock.

The cooperative now plans to set up a facility that will assist farmers in cutting costs by not traveling long distances to Gobabis for such services on a daily basis.

"Farmers in the constituency have often faced key challenges maintaining the quality of their livestock due to a lack of local livestock feed supply. This is a costly exercise that contributes to high input costs, reducing the margins farmers would have potentially made on the sale of livestock."

Omaheke Governor Pijoo Nganate said there is a need to bring much-needed services closer to the rural communities.

"At the onset, let me affirm to you my personal sense of gratitude towards Onjose Farmers Cooperative in recognizing that growth can be obtained from anywhere and that growth in settlement areas such as Tallismanus is of vital importance."

Nganate has also called upon other stakeholders to join the Onjose Cooperative, which he believes will transform and develop the Tallismanus settlement.

A traditional leader, Kaituu Tjozongoro, says the establishment of the cooperative is testimony to hard work and dedication towards the upliftment of the living standards of the Otjombinde farming community.

"Let me urge fellow farmers, traditional leaders in Otjombinde constituency, and all stakeholders in a farming fraternity to support each other in any projects such as this one we are about to witness."

During the gathering, the farming community was also presented with up-to-date farming techniques by various experts.

Onjose Farmers Cooperative has more than two hundred registered members.