currency and outreach to local settlements run by Daiton and Simba. The
project aims to strengthen community networks, improve livelihoods and
food security. The team have printed their own local money - Hours -
that represent an our of work and are equivalent to a dollar, although
in reality an 8 hour day for a farm labourer would earn much less than
this amount.
Daiton & Simba have set up a fortnightly farmers market for local people
to bring their produce and buy & sell using their 'hours'. This Saturday
we took our first trip along with them to see what happens.
Firstly they drive to 4 different settlements to take people to the
market. The settlements are quite spread out as they are situated on
old (white owned) farms that were invaded from 2000 onwards. The
properties are large, so the communities are dispersed and the distances
too great for walking (the only means that most people have of getting
around).
Going into the first couple of communities was certainly an eye opener
for me; the realisation of how relatively well off Kufunda is compared
to the majority of rural people and how severe an impact the land
occupation has had on people's livelihoods.
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A quick bit of background: as Z's economic situation deteriorated in the
late 90's the government could not afford to pay war veterans' pensions.
The solution that was decided upon was to allow the war veterans to
occupy white-owned farms, who mostly stripped farms of anything valuable
and sometimes taking up residence on the properties.
Most farm workers live on the farms they work on, so these people were
now out of work as a result, however many of them have remained on the
properties to try to subsist on the land. Other people have moved to
these 'contested' lands (contested since the original farmers are trying
through the courts to reclaim their land, but it will take years)
through family connections to the farm workers or through government
land redistribution.
Farm workers were normally given small plots to till alongside their
accommodation on the white owned farms, and pretty much all rural local
know how to keep a small crop of maize, pumpkins, beans, etc. The
problem has come that the people that are now occupying the farms do not
have the broadacre management know-how, nor the capital to maintain
infrastructure / buy agricultural inputs (fertilizers, other chemical
inputs, machinery, etc) required to manage large-scale agricultural
enterprises. Add to this the fact that most things of value have been
stripped out and what you have left are large areas of fairly poor
quality soil, little irrigation and no access to the chemical inputs
that made broadacre farming on these lands viable.
Driving around the farms to pick people up it was evident that people
are still trying to farm using a broadacre approach - large fields of
maize in poor soil, filled with weeds and very, very dry. This is the
approach that they know & worked on, however it is not necessarily
appropriate without the inputs that a managed business could afford.
_______________________________________________________________________
So, back to the currency project & the farmers market.
After everyone had arrived at the site (called 'Lot 2' after the section
of the old tobacco farm that was there - see pictures of the ruined
curing sheds) people arranged themselves in a semi-circle, laying out
the goods that they had brought to trade. It was evident that people
really didn't have that much produce to trade, both a result of being
between seasons and the amount that people are actually managing to
produce from their fields.
To open an welcome was made and a reminder why everyone was here - to
strengthen the community & to help one another get by. All trades were
to be done in hours. There was a short play with the theme of people
helping each other presented with a discussion afterwards about what it
meant. This is a good format for raising issues and I think could
certainly be developed further.
Ali & I were introduced as I'm sure there were a few questions as to
what the hell these white people were doing there(!) and it was
announced that we had purchased 20 hours and were here to spend it!!
The buying & selling, which was quite frenetic & most decent produce
disappearing quickly. We picked up a few avocados, a pumpkin and some
spiky cucumbers. After this people moved into their community groups
where Simba and Daiton provided people with a small amount of staples
(milli-meal, salt, sugar, oil - see photo) which they then divided up.
For me it is clear that there is potential there, but there are also
immediate issues that need to be solved before such a scheme can work
effectively.
* Firstly people need to have more to trade to strengthen the
system and allow it to meet needs. This will require: trading
services as well as produce; increasing crop diversity (most
people had brought along the same 5 things); and increasing
productivity (perhaps moving to more intensive gardening than
broadacre strategies)
* Secondly people need to be able to get to the farmers market
more easily. The tyranny of distance and no transport impacts
on peoples' abilities to participate. A bicycle project could
help to alleviate some of these issues as distances were short
enough to make cycling an option. If communities are going to
trade outside their boundaries then some method of transporting
produce to market is required.
* Thirdly there is the issue of hard currency and getting
businesses started - finance is needed to help people get their
own (or cooperative) businesses set up as currently capital is
non-existent. We are going to research micro-finance
opportunities.
* Finally assessment should be made for the potential of bulk
purchase of staples as part of a food coop (that Kufunda would
also benefit from implementing).
We are going to sit down with the team & look at some of these options
and decide how some of the issues can be overcome. I think that we can
help especially in areas of project mgt and behaviour change. Looking
forward to it!
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