Mozambique: Agriculture Input Fairs - a Chance to "Live in Dignity"

Despite a chain of misfortunes, 75-year-old Gonçalves Mandlate faithfully works his plot soon after sunrise each day, hoping that his life, and those of the five grandchildren who live with him, will improve. Their standard of living is miserable. All six live crammed into a reed shack that is divided inside by a coarse, sack-like curtain. The space for the bedroom is completely occupied by a reed mat that they sleep on, under a ragged mosquito net. In the other half of the room the family sits to eat on the sandy floor among rusty pots and worn out shoes. There is no running water, no electricity and no latrine.

Recently, thieves stole Mandlate's prize possessions: a hoe, a watering can and his radio. But even then he did not give up farming. "I improvised. I used this to water the plots," Mandlate says, holding up a five-litre water carrier with its spout cut off. "I used my hands instead of a hoe. It took me longer to farm the land each day, but I managed."

There is no trace of self pity in this account, perhaps because Mandlate -- a widower for the past 20 years -- has become accustomed to hardship. As a child, he had to drop out of school to herd his family's livestock. Then he had to endure Mozambique's 16-year civil war that ended in 1992 after taking hundreds of thousands of lives and severely disrupting agricultural production. Mandlate has also lost crops due to frequent droughts and during the devastating floods of 2000.

Three of his six children died due to different illnesses. And three years ago he took on responsibility for the five grandchildren when his son, a bricklayer, left with his wife to take a job in neighbouring Gaza province. "The children were registered in school here," says Mandlate. "I'm not sure when their father and mother will be back."

However, in April this year Mandlate had a welcome boost. He and about 2,250 other farmers in the so-called Zonas Verdes ("Green Zones", in Portuguese) around the capital of Maputo benefitted from an "Input Trade Fair".

The fairs are part of a national programme implemented by the Ministry of Agriculture with support from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation, donor agencies and international non-governmental organisations, whereby vouchers with a cash value are distributed to farmers most in need of assistance instead of giving them kits of seeds and tools.
The beneficiaries can spend the vouchers only during a fair, purchasing agricultural supplies of their choice from local companies which then cash in their vouchers the same day. "The agricultural kits that were given before came from companies in foreign countries," says Laurence Hendrickx, a representative of the Flanders International Co-operation Agency, a Flemish governmental body which supports the programme.

"It is an intervention that is somewhere between emergency and development The government gives the means to farmers in need of assistance to produce food for the coming year, and moreover food that they choose -- and at the same time stimulates the local economy by (facilitating) buying from local companies."

The hope is that obliging farmers to support the local economy will strengthen it for years to come, enabling the immediate development gains of aid to be sustainable over the long term.
The fair that Mandlate attended "was a big success," says Simao Niquisse, the head of the technical department in the Ministry of Agriculture.

"There is more transparency with the fairs than with food distributions because they are so well planned. We work closely with the agricultural associations and community leaders who identify the beneficiaries who are most in need. The farmers have a choice of quality agricultural inputs at their doorstep."

Hendrickx, who has visited several of the agricultural input fairs, says they have become lively events, with many members of the community drawn to participate: "One group of women in Gaza province, for example, borrowed money from the bank to hire a truck to follow the fairs held across the country so they could sell their groundnuts."

She adds that another important aspect is the HIV/AIDS awareness activities that take place at the fairs. An estimated 16.6 per cent of Mozambique's population aged between 15 and 59 years is now infected with HIV, according to government -- and AIDS has taken a toll on agricultural production.

"The fairs usually have street theatre groups to make people aware of HIV/AIDS, and the people love them. It's a great opportunity for these awareness activities because is not often that there is an event when you have such a large gathering," notes Hendrickx.

Tens of thousands of farmers in the flood or drought affected provinces have now benefited from the project, which was first extended nationally in 2003, and hundreds of thousands of dollars are estimated to have been pumped into the local economy as a result.

Fonte: Inter Press Service (Johannesburg)