Drought forces Swazi farmers to change

Farmers all over the world are scrambling to adjust to agricultural seasons that are no longer reliably predictable. In large parts of Africa the adjustment in many cases is to shorter, delayed and less wet rainy seasons.

Because of how agriculture is closely intertwined into virtually every aspect of the lives and societies of traditional farmers, the adjustments they find themselves forced to make in their farming practices have far-reaching effects on their communities. Usually the ones we read and hear most about are of the examples of failure or difficulty to cope with the sudden, bewildering changes: malnutrition, economic destitution, social dislocation, donor dependency and so forth.

But this does not mean that all is as bleak and as hopeless as is often portrayed, sometimes by those who perceive themselves benefitting from painting a picture of utter devastation and helplessness.

In the southern African nation of Swaziland five years of declining harvests and three years of drought-induced crop failures have spurred smallholder farmers who make up a majority of the country's population to do the unthinkable : change their traditional attitudes about what they grow.

"I grow maize. It is the Swazi staple food. My father grew maize. His father grew maize. Our ancestors grew maize," said Thabo Mahlalela, who owns two under-producing hectares in the parched northern portion of the small landlocked kingdom.

Maize is not native to Africa. Portuguese colonialists imported the crop from its conquered territories in South America, where it had been cultivated for centuries. It is thought to have been introduced to Swaziland in the 1820s from neighboring Portugese colony Mozambique. From being itinerate hunter/gatherers and warriors the Swazi became domesticated farmers, dependant on the thriving maize crops that changed their way of life.

But in 2006, for the first time, Mahlalela grew a drought resistant crop, cotton. To soften the blow of such a radical departure from the norm, and perhaps appease his ancestors, he set aside a portion of one field for some maize.

The maize fared poorly. Good rains were followed by a month of no rainfall whatsoever, cruelly timed to coincide with the delicate tasseling stage of the plant's development. The maize stalks withered in their youth, but the cotton grew, the 45 year-old farmer admitted.

Mahlalela acknowledged that if his entire land was devoted to maize, his family would have nothing today. Despite his reservations about cotton, this cash crop did yield some profit to feed and clothe his family, and pay for his children's school fees.

"I and my neighbours were always afraid of cash crops, because we did not understand the market. What if nobody wanted to buy our cotton? We would have nothing. At least with maize, we could eat what we grew, like our ancestors did," he said.

The government has developed a system to link small farmers' output to domestic and foreign buyers. "There is no such thing as a subsistence farmer anymore. Peasant farmers are developing cooperative ventures, pooling their lands to grow items for sale overseas. Even individual farmers sell some things to the market. Everyone needs cash," said former Minister of Agriculture Roy Fonourakis.

It is too early and there are too many unknowns about this shift to cash cropping to say what new issues it will raise. Mahlela and his fellow farmers were not entirely wrong to worry
about the marketing vagaries of a crop with no food value. Adjusting to the ups and downs of the market may be wrenching for the reluctant new Swazi cotton farmers, but it is one example of how need may nudge deeply conservative communities to consider options they would normally dismiss out of hand during times of "normality" in which they perceive the status quo to be working for them.