Purchase Progress Increases Access for Small-Scale Farmers

Gethsemane Mwizabi

23 April 2011

“I WILL now be able to till my land in time, plant early and get a good harvest. I did not know I could one day own a tractor – it was my dream!” said Taviness Munyutwa, a smallholder farmer of Shabasonje village in Mumbwa district, some 100 kilometres from Lusaka.

In recent memory, Taviness, a widow and mother of four, became a proud owner of a tractor and ripper through a loan facilitated by Purchase for Progress (P4P) working in partnership with Dunavant Zambia Limited and a USAID-PROFIT project.

For a seasoned farmer, large or small, preparing the land is important to ensure the timely planting of crops, which is a critical factor in productivity.

Taviness has been farming for many years, but had relied on family members to manually till her land.

The hardship of widowhood and the idea of tilling the land manually has not been an easy one as the undertaking is highly labour intensive.

But things are changing now for her and her community. You could say she is lucky or Heaven has been kind to her. The truth is things are not what they used to be. Her salty tears have now turned into tears of joy. For once in her life, she is a proud owner of a tractor thanks to P4P.

For every tractor, at least 60 smallholder households are now able to till their fields.

Taviness now wants to educate her community about the benefits of tilling and planting early.

She will increase the hectares she cultivates to earn more money and to make sure she can afford to send her children to school.

P4P is a Word Food Programme (WFP) pilot project that aims to provide sustainable hunger solutions to smallholder farmer households and their communities, through increased agriculture productivity and access to a wider marketing outlet.

Inception and Beneficiaries

Since its inception at the start of 2009, 10 farmers have accessed tractors so far while 38 Shellers have received sheller machines which cost about US$66,000 in total.

Further, $136,000 from a revolving fund has since been spent on provision of tractors.

“As farmers pay back the loans, others will be assisted. We will in May this year provide tractors to another 10 smallholder farmers who are currently undergoing training in tractor handling.”

By working together with several partners, initiative provides farmers with private sector inputs, skills and knowledge about the intricacies of supply and demand to enhance production and productivity.

According to the WFP fact sheet approximately 72 per cent of the national workforce in Zambia is employed in the agricultural sector, characterised by cyclical surplus and deficit years, dependent on weather patterns that affect maize production.

Zambia’s productive capacity varies between districts: some districts consistently experience food deficits despite a national surplus.

Between 2001 and the start of P4P in 2009, WFP has bought more than 391,000 tonnes of commodities in Zambia, valued more than $90 million.

The P4P focuses on transforming the way smallholders market their produce. Through strengthening the Zambian Agricultural Commodities Exchange (ZAMACE) and promoting private sector run district warehouses certified by ZAMACE.

WFP and partners provide the smallholder sector with an alternative means of accessing the commercial market. This will change the way smallholder farmers sell their commodities: from selling a small quantity in an informal market at a low price or to the Food Reserve Agency (FRA) at a set price, to directly accessing the commercial market and selling aggregated quantities of higher quality for a better share of the market price.

As these markets provide higher margins, smallholders have a higher incentive to invest in production.

Connecting farmers not only to WFP but to such commercial markets ensures the sustainability of P4P activities in Zambia.

The key partners in the projects are CARE, CeLIM, Conservation Farming Unit (CFU), Dunavant Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) International Finance Corporation (IFC) Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives and the Programme Against Malnutrition (PAM)

According to WFP Zambia agricultural sector is characterised by a highly volatile and unpredictable market.

This leads to a lack of confidence by farmers to invest in their agricultural businesses despite access to inputs, skills and knowledge i.e. low uptake of conservation farming and irrigation.

This results in low yields and high rates of abandonment of cultivated land. Even in the Sixth National Development Plan (SNDP) recognises that there is low investment in the agriculture sector, low production and productivity especially among smallholder farmers are some of the serious challenges currently affecting the sector.

The constraints to growth of the sector include among others; inadequate extension services, high cost of financing, inadequate infrastructure, livestock diseases, over fishing and poor functioning agricultural markers.

Thus, WFP through the P4P programme is supplementing the Government’s efforts to enable smallholder farmers not only to be productive but have access to markets.

The P4P project targets emerging farmers with the capacity to manage tractors.

“We work with the Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives and the Director of Cooperatives to identify beneficiaries. WFP does not go to farmers directly,” said Pablo Recalde, WFP Zambia representative and country director.

About the sustainability of the programme Mr Recalde said WFP uses a market-based approach that does not strive to create parallel systems that cannot be sustained through existing markets.

One of the ways in which WFP Zambia has been engaging in this has been through its support of the ZAMACE and linked district certified warehouses.

Although this is yet to become core in the marketing and price setting process, it has gained an undeniable momentum in large part through WFP’s support.

“We have been working together with our partners in Government, private sector and donor community to help develop Zambia’s marketing system and help farmers find an alternative to current ways through which they access markets,” he said

There is no doubt that agriculture remains Government’s priority sector in achieving sustainable economic growth and reduce poverty in Zambia, which is in a hurry to develop.

The emphasis on agricultural development is obvious; Zambia has immense natural resources such as land and fertile soils to support agricultural activities.

In addition, over 80 per cent of Zambia’s rural population depends on agriculture related activities for their livelihood.

Therefore, the growth of the sector is an important element for the attainment of the long-term vision for Zambia, which is to become a prosperous middle-income country by 2030.

As for the P4P, which started in 2009, works with an alliance of partners to help develop a structured functioning market with transparent market-determined prices through WFP’s procurement and advice to ZAMACE.

In addition, P4P is working with ZAMACE and partners to develop a network of private sector run certified district warehouses; a nascent Warehouse Receipts System (WRS).

The primary goal of the network is to provide an alternative market for smallholder farmers and to develop the warehouse receipt as an accepted trading instrument until such time as appropriate legislation is in place.

For smallholder farmers to engage in the wider commercial market, as opposed to selling to the FRA or small traders, they must aggregate, clean and sort their commodity to accepted graded standards that command a higher market price.

P4P and its partners work to sensitise and train farmers’ organisations to achieve this.

“It was a blessing for me to receive these two powerful farming machines”, said Angela Malambo, of Mapanza village in Choma.

AllAfrica – All the Time