Saved to save others
Connecting smallholder farmers to markets improves their lives and contributes to economic development
Next year 2.4 million rural Zimbabweans are projected to be food insecure during the ‘hungriest time’ of the year. The time between harvests, from October through to April, is commonly known as the ‘lean season.’ It is likely that Zimbabwe will experience another El Niño which could result in below-average rains. For many farmers, recurrent droughts mean poor harvests and declining incomes.
For smallholder farmer Fani Nyazvigo, however, it is a different story. Thanks to training from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) led by the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP), Fani is feeling positive even in the face of uncertainty.
“I used to receive food from WFP every month,” he said, “but ever since I got training on farming as a business in 2014, I have managed to harvest more than 500 kilograms surplus food.”
Small grains fight climate change
In 2014, WFP introduced the USAID-funded Small Grain Production and Farmer Training project which compliments the government of Zimbabwe’s initiatives to improve food and nutrition security for the most vulnerable households in drought-prone districts. The project originally targeted 10,000 vulnerable smallholder farmers, like Fani, who were receiving food assistance from WFP. The project aims to improve farmers’ resilience to future climatic shocks, thereby reducing the communities’ reliance on humanitarian assistance during the lean season.
Farmers are trained on best practices and good crop production methods for low-rainfall areas, such as soil and moisture conservation and crop variety selection, as well as post-harvest management to reduce grain losses. In 2014, each farmer received sorghum and cowpea seeds — small grains that are more resilient to drought — and fertilizer. Farmers also received training on farming as a business, emphasizing market linkages and group development whereby small groups of farmers are led by one WFP trained lead farmer, who then trains others.
As a result of the training, Fani has found success as a farmer, growing and harvesting enough food to feed his family while contributing to his community by selling his surplus produce. With the income he has earned in the last few years, he built a new house for his family — something he always wanted to do.
“It is every father’s dream to feed his family, and send his children to school,” he said. “The only regret I have is that I received this training late in my life, but it is better to be late than never to start.”
Giving back to the community
Others in the community who had not participated in the official training continued ‘farming as usual,’ without much success.
“Instead of learning from history, we decided to teach history a lesson and continued to plant maize,” said smallholder farmer Spiwe Raibha. “But it didn’t work. We had to reach out to Fani to teach us what he was taught by WFP.”
Fani is now paying his success forward by training ten other farmers every year. “I don’t want my community to have the same regret,” he said. “So I am giving back to the community by training those who are willing.”
Fani is one of many Zimbabwean smallholder farmers who have been able to harvest a surplus since receiving training. WFP provides a market for their surplus production. In 2017, under the Purchase for Progress (P4P) initiative, it purchased 212 metric tonnes directly from the farmers with support from USAID. That surplus was routed as food assistance to other drought-affected districts. This way, Zimbabwean farmers are not only supporting themselves, but also their fellow citizens.
This season Fani is expecting to harvest four metric tonnes and plans to sell three metric tonnes. He wants to buy a grinding mill so that he can add value to his produce and sell it to nearby hospitals and schools.
In 2018, WFP plans to purchase 1,200 metric tonnes of grains locally, with funding from USAID, including from smallholder farmers like Fani and Spiwe. With these sales, formerly vulnerable farmers, their families and communities need not sacrifice tomorrow, for today.
USAID is WFP Zimbabwe’s largest contributor, providing more than US$37 million in 2017 alone.
