Poor land management affecting harvests

Swaziland's harvest yields are expected to get steadily worse because poor land management is leading to soil degradation, a World Food Programme (WFP) crops survey has warned. "Crop yields are in general very low because most of the cultivated soils have low levels of fertility, high acidity and poor moisture retention capacity," the report said. The kingdom is facing its fifth consecutive year of diminished harvests. By January 2004, 245,000 people, or about a quarter of the population, are expected to be dependent on WFP food aid. "Maize cannot continue to be mono-cropped year after year," said the report, which recommended crop rotation and inter-cropping practices with leguminous and other drought-tolerant crops. "The overall benefits are the improvement of soil structure and fertility, food security, cash incomes, dietary diversity and protection of the environment," it added. However, the recommendation that fields be taken out of production and allowed to lie fallow for a year is not likely to be practiced in a country where a growing rural population encounters diminishing cropland. "Allowing fields to lie fallow for a season is standard practice to ensure fertility," former agriculture minister Roy Fanourakis told IRIN. "But for subsistence farmers who depend on their small fields for family survival, this is not an option." As an alternative, the WFP recommended planting legume crops for a year. However, rural developmental groups say land reform must be the inducement to prompt subsistence farmers to learn new ways. "Right now, we don't own the land, and we can be kicked off for not obeying our chief. That's why people grow maize, for eating today. They don't think of the future, because it's not theirs," said Titus Dlamini, a farmer in rural Luve. Like other farmers who made submissions to the Constitutional Drafting Committee when it recently held a consultation in the village, Dlamini said government should grant a 99-year lease to families who have been on their land for generations. Land in Swaziland is known as Swazi Nation Land or "king's land". People are given land on condition that it will be forfeit if they do not make use of it. But, as was seen when 200 people were evicted from their farms last year for failing to accept King Mswati’s brother, Prince Maguga Dlamini, as their chief, tenancy can also be revoked for political reasons. This week the African Development Bank granted Swaziland a US $24 million loan to boost agricultural production in the Komati River basin, in the hope that 20,000 Swazis would benefit from anticipated projects and see improvements in their lifestyles. "But they will still be landless. Unless this loan comes with a requirement for land reform, it will only make a richer class of peasants," argued Dlamini. In its latest quarterly report the Central Bank of Swaziland noted that food production on Swazi Nation Land had shrunk by 10.3 percent last year, after declining 27.3 percent the year before. Seventy percent of the working population is directly involved in agriculture, or indirectly through the canning industry.