Lack of inputs, drought, driving rural poverty

Sifiso Mamba waded through his dense, waist-high maize, uprooting every second stalk. He had planted during a time of optimism over expected rains in Swaziland, but was now being forced to destroy part of his crop to save the rest. "My father once had to cull his cattle herd when there was drought - there was no food for them all. This is the same," said the tall, 25-year-old father of three. The plants are green, but the maize cobs are stunted. In order to conserve the ground's limited moisture, he must thin out his crop in the hope that the rest will mature. He farms on communal land in Lavumisa, about 10 km from the South African border in southern Swaziland. "This is work that makes me feel bad. But you look around this region and some fields are just gone for good this year - I have a chance with mine." It is not just the drought that farmers in this region have been forced to contend with. About two-thirds of Swazis live in chronic poverty, and it is this, as much as the weather, that has hit food production. "I plough with my uncle's team of oxen, but they are not as good as a tractor. I or my cousin, we man the plough, but we don't have the tractor's power to push down into the hard earth to make deep furrows. You can see that the fields that were ploughed with tractors are doing better than my field," said Mamba. He blamed politics and corruption for the unequal distribution of agriculture ministry assets like tractors. The government purchases tractors that can be rented by small landholder farmers like Mamba, but he alleged that powerful and influential people were given preference. "Also seeds - these are holding me back. I use the seeds my father used, and his father, we save them from the previous year's crop. I would like new seeds. You purchase them [at a commercial distributor], but they are expensive. I was going to save some money from this year's maize sales for seeds, but the rains didn't fall well. I'm going to have enough maize to feed my family, but not much to sell." Half a kilometre up a dirt road is Albert Mnisi's farm, and his crop is obviously doing better. "Sifiso can only use the dung he collects from his cows for fertiliser. I could buy [commercial] fertiliser because I had money from my sister, who is a law clerk in Mbabane [the capital]. She also gave us money to buy seeds; we would do better if we had a tractor to plough," said Mnisi. Fertiliser has made a clear difference to Mnisi's crop. The maize plants are more vividly green, are taller and have thicker stems. Some plants have produced maize cobs 20 centimetres in length. "My sister helped us a lot - she has a job and an income. It is hard to advance, doing things the old way; you want to buy fertiliser and seeds, but you don't have money. A little irrigation would change everything, but now we wait for the rains to come. Here in Lavumisa, it has been a long time since we have had good rains," said Mnisi. He spoke of being caught in a cycle of poor rainfall, under-production, and the trap of rural poverty that could be alleviated if he had just a little help. Swaziland's rainfall has been erratic this season. "In the lowveld of Swaziland, the Shiselweni Region in particular, drought is worse than last year. No rains at Lavumisa in January and February - it was hot and dry. But at Lomahasha [in the usually drought-prone eastern Lubombo Region], too much rain washed away fields," said Abdoulaye Balde, the World Food Programme's country representative. He cautioned that it was too early to assess Swaziland's output for 2006 - harvesting has just begun, and will continue through May - but noted that "it is not just a matter of rainfall; poverty plays a role". "You have two fields side by side. I inspected one, and the farmer told me he didn't have the tools to plough deep. The second field, the farmer ploughed down to the little more moisture that made a difference to his plants. He also used fertiliser; he had the inputs," Balde said. Agriculture ministry field officer Themba Dlamini said that to improve food production, and break the cycle of rural poverty, small landholder farmers needed help with the basics. "The seeds, fertiliser and tractors must be coupled with education. The farmers must learn to set aside monies to purchase next year's seeds and fertiliser, and for tractor rental. Irrigation will come next - that would be a larger infrastructure project for government," Dlamini commented. He and Balde noted that an impediment to greater food production for Swaziland's small rural farmers was the high cost of fertiliser. The yield-boosting chemicals are imported from South Africa, and only two outlets control pricing and distribution. Across Southern Africa soils are denuded, the organic matter that provides energy for plant growth exhausted or washed away. Without the nutrients being replenished, the ground becomes hard and barren.