Vusumuzi Sifile
MAPUTO, Mozambique (IPS) – Theatre and agriculture are two words not often seen together. But they are stepping out in tandem across Southern Africa in support of raising farm productivity and incomes.
A play that will soon be put on for rural people and policy-makers alike was performed in Maputo at the week-long dialogue on agriculture policy organised by the Food, Agriculture and Natural Resources Policy Analysis Network (FANRPAN).
And if there was any doubt about the power of theatre to excite audiences about issues surrounding agricultural policy, it was dispelled by the site of Zimbabwean cabinet minister Sekai Holland leaving her seat to dance with the crowd.
High officials have been known to perform a few dance steps at political rallies, but if this play gets the suits and high heels of the region’s decision makers dancing regularly on the same stage as the kangas and bare feet of the women who make up its agricultural work force, a magical transformation cannot be far off.
The play, written and directed by top Zimbabwean playwright Cont Mhlanga and featuring actors from Bulawayo’s award-winning Amakhosi Theatre, explores the challenges rural women face accessing farming inputs, particularly government subsidies. It is part of FANRPAN’s Women Accessing Realigned Markets (WARM) project.
The action of the play centres on Nkolomi, a village headman who dominates access to farming inputs. When seeds and fertiliser are somehow distributed without his approval, he orders everything be returned to him. His long-standing practice is to hand these vital commodities out to his cronies; his nepotism has deprived women – among them widows struggling to support their families alone – to the extent that some have gone three years without farming.
The story brings to the fore how local authorities sometimes undermine stated government policy and efforts by civil society to empower women. But Nkolomi is opposed by one desperate widow, by the area’s newly-elected member of parliament and by his own wife. The conflict over distribution of the goods involves the audience in an emotional journey through the real power struggles as they are played out in the village : between men and women, old and young, urban and rural.
Sithembile Ndema, the FANRPAN programme officer in charge of the WARM project, said the play and other related initiatives would be used to engage leaders, service providers and policymakers, encourage community participation, and research the needs of women farmers.
The project is supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation through its Agricultural Development Initiative, which seeks to empower mostly small-scale farmers in Africa and Asia.
