Vusumuzi Sifile
“Farmers know what they want.” - Linda Nghatsane. Credit: Zahira Kharsany/IPS
MAPUTO, (IPS) – Decisions about agriculture should be made in the outdoors, under trees and with the people whose livelihood it is to farm – not with suits in boardrooms.
Whenever policy makers gather to make decisions on agriculture, Linda Nghatsane and fellow members of the Nelspruit Agricultural Development Association in South Africa get frustrated.
Their frustration is not about the purpose of the meeting, but where the meetings are always held – nowhere near the farms.
“My problem is that policy formulation usually takes place in boardrooms and hotels, and not on our farms or under the trees where we always meet as farmers,” Nghatsane said during a debate on realigning input markets to farmers needs.
This, she said, always resulted in the formulation of policies that are not line with farmers’ needs and expectations. This has had negative effects mostly on women farmers.
“I do not know whether it is the policy makers who fail to understand issues or it is us the farmers failing to articulate our issues,” she said. “Farmers know what they want.”
She said that instead of the authorities dictating what the farmers should do, maybe they should be in dialogue with farmers about their needs.
While it was a good idea for the authorities to make timely interventions to boost farmers, Nghatsane said farmers should also be allowed to manoeuvre and work on their own.
“It is very important to kick start farmers, but it does not help to get farmers on track and then want to push them all the way. The farmers should be left to run on their own,” she said.
Nghatsane said policy makers could also be influenced by the attitudes many people have about farmers. Among other things, she said people tend to believe that all small scale farmers are illiterate.
Former Zambian agriculture and crops minister, Chance Kabaghe, said governments should come up with policies that allow farmers to access markets beyond their borders.
“We are shooting ourselves in the foot if we restrict marketing of our produce locally. We need to open up our borders. Once the policy makers liberalise, the whole thing takes care of itself,” said Kabaghe, who now works with the Zambia Food Security Research Project.
“Once borders are opened, you have many agricultural dealers working with each other. This revolutionises agriculture and leads to improved output. It is not the business of the government to be in business ,” he added.
Kabaghe said “a farmer knows what he or she wants, but you always have someone at the headquarters deciding to give the farmer what he/she does not want”.
Zambian farmer Cecilia Makota confirmed that in 2008 she more than quadrupled her income from agriculture after she started selling maize across the border to Zimbabwe.
And Sithembile Ndema, a programme manager with the Food Agriculture and Natural Resources Policy Analysis Network (FANRPAN) said that tonight they were launching a new programme to help women access markets and aid in providing farming inputs.
With enough collaboration between farmers and the policy makers, the years of food deficit in Africa would soon come to an end – according to Dr. David Kamchacha, FANRPAN’s Director of Agriculture Inputs and Outputs Market.
“Southern Africa is not doomed to remain in food deficit. Yes we can,” said Kamchacha.
