Seed packs helping drought-affected farmers to recover

A food assistance programme targeting rural households in Zambia is helping drought-hit small-scale farmers get back on their feet. The government is providing vulnerable but 'viable' households, having at least one productive member, with planting packs that include seeds for cereals and legumes as well as fertilisers. The packs not only help feed that family, but also provide a source of income, alleviating often dire poverty. "While we are still conducting an assessment of the impact on the poor small-scale farmers, we believe that almost all our beneficiaries will have recovered after the distribution of food packs at the end of the second farming season this year," Ronald Mukuma, project manager of the Emergency Drought and Recovery Programme, told IRIN. The World Bank-funded initiative, spread over the two farming seasons of 2003/04 and 2004/05, targets 38 districts in seven of the country's nine provinces. Mukuma said the programme has had a far-reaching impact on entire farming communities. "For example, if we came across a drought-affected village with 10,000 people, and we were able to assist only 3,000, we set up seed banks. These seed banks have helped lift entire villages out of poverty." Two of the three NGOs that are implementing partners of the programme, the Adventist Development and Relief Agency (ADRA) and the Programme Against Malnutrition (PAM), told IRIN that at least 15 to 30 percent of the beneficiaries in their districts had resumed commercial production as a result of the planting packs. The US $6 million first phase of the programme reached about 114,000 beneficiaries in 2003/04. The second phase began in September 2004 and has targeted 75,000 beneficiaries at a cost of $5.2 million. "The Zambian government had been running the programme since the drought in 2002, which had wiped out the little assets that small-scale farmers had, across the country; then the World Bank stepped in with funding in 2003," Mukuma said. Before the project began, officials of the Disaster Management and Mitigation Unit, along with the Department of Community Development and Social Services, sought the assistance of village headmen to identify vulnerable households. "Priority was given to households headed by the elderly, women, children, disabled and those affected by HIV/AIDS. But the condition was that each household should have a member who would be able to work in the fields," Mukuma said. Drought, followed by outbreaks of livestock disease, had wiped out the few animals the affected households possessed, he added. Helen Samatebele, PAM's deputy director, said her organisation distributed seed packs that included cereals, such as rice, sorghum or millet, and legumes, like soybeans, groundnuts or cowpeas. "We covered almost 50,000 beneficiaries last year, and we hope to reach out to 36,000 by April [2005], when the World Bank funding runs out," she said. Each household receives enough seed to plant a quarter of a hectare with cereals and a smaller quantity of legumes. ADRA distributed seed packs in 11 districts in Eastern and Northern provinces and has also helped set up seed banks. "The programme does need to continue, to uplift people out of poverty and malnutrition," Mukuma stressed.