The purpose of this master thesis is to survey small-scale crop farm profits in
north-central Namibia and also to evaluate the associated motivation for farming.
Knowledge of farmers profit and motivations as well as their inter linkages is important
for potential intervention mechanisms aiming to improve the prevailing
farming system. On a theoretical basis three motivation patterns were synthesized
and brought into context with expected differences of net farm profits of
these patterns. In 41 interviews quantitative data about farm profit and motivations
was assessed in north-central Namibia. On average, the studied farms have
positive net profits with high variations between the farms. Aiming the motivations,
securing food and cultural motives were found to be the main drivers for
farming. It is then shown that diverging farming behaviours can be explained by
motivational differences. The behaviour of farmers is influencing the yields and
thereby also the net farm profits. Findings presented in this thesis give empirical
evidence that this motivation based mechanism can explain noticeable amount of
the observed farm profit variations.