Fighting on two fronts

Yesterday was one of those frequent psychological valleys development work pitches you into once, twice, or five times a week.

It started out okay ... I was packing up my rucksack to go in the field and observe/assist with an agroforestry training being conducted by our local Ministry of Ag. and Forestry Dept. guys out in Lui-Wanyau. By 7:30, I was all set to go for the appointed time of 8:00. Unfortunately, the unscheduled absence of one of our two vehicles and the concurrent lack of communication within our office meant we were short of transport. Our extension agent Aka went on a mad dash around town trying to organize a 4x4 to get out to Wanyau; I went over to our local Water Affairs and got a 3/4" pipe we're using as a standpipe threaded. Nothing had been sorted by the time I got back, so I worked on a production memorandum for our peanut butter production and marketing until 12:00. I called Aka, who informed me that no wheels could be found.

I packed up my laptop and newly-threaded pipe, and went into town to get some chow before going out to our worksite way outside of town. Along the way, I stopped at our old (FRA) office and found Mr. Mooto (my manager) sitting under the big mango tree outside. Mr. Mooto is always dressed like I'd imagine how people dressed in the 1930s ... straw hat, short tie, pants pulled up nearly to his sternum, etc. He was fanning himself with the boater, and expressed his usual complaint about the heat, which is reasonable ... you can bake bread in the FRA office once the sun comes out. He told me Patrick, Munalula, and Timothy had went up north to Situnga on the east bank of the Zambezi to purchase rice, and he was hoping this was going to be our first decent purchase. Since the last week of August, we've been trying to purchase Supa rice to fill our newly printed 1kg bag, but have only received spits and spats of rice: 1 bag here, 5 bags there, etc.

We parted company shortly thereafter. I grabbed my usual town lunch, nshima and village [i.e. unintentional free range] chicken with a small portion of boiled rape, which I liberally dosed with salt and chili sauce. I then pounded a Pepsi and about 1/2 a gallon of water in preparation for the walk out to our new site; walking at 13:00hrs. is significantly more challenging than at 7:00hrs. when the temps are cooler and the sand is a bit tighter to walk on.

After 30 minutes of traversing Katuya compound, about 100 kids practicing their rudimentary English on me, one woman commenting that I shouldn't be walking because I might die of heat (my Lozi is moving forward inch-by-inch), I arrived at the site. After chatting with Lingela and Aka about the transport issues, I started in on putting in our last 70 meters of polypipe to the office so that if our supplies request for plumbing ever goes through, Mr. Mooto can stop answering the Call of Nature by walking out into nature. It took about an hour; the fittings, though simple in principle, are notoriously cantankerous affairs that never seem to fit together right the first six time you assemble them.

In the meantime, a taxi pulled up; Munalula, Patrick, Timothy, and Mr. Mooto all got out. As usual, Munalula was dressed in a long-sleeve shirt under a sweater-vest and moving three times as fast as any five Zambians despite the 40-degree temps. I could tell by the others, though, that the news was not good. Patrick came out as I was fitting the poly-pipe to the galvanized standpipe and told me the story of the purchasing exercise: Arriving in Situnga, they had found no one had brought bags to the appointed area (as promised by the local extension worker), so they found the extension worker and went around looking for rice. One farmer (a cooperative member) had 35 bags, but refused to sell them after they had been weighed out at 49, 48, 46kgs, etc. ... We purchased raw rice by the kilogram (paying K2,000), and since the price was just under K100,000 per bag, he turned them down, wanting the full K100,000 regardless of weight, rather than K98,000. When Patrick tried to negotiate, the guy got really "crazy" and brushed them off. A number of other farmers told our crew they had rice, maybe 1-5 bags each, but that we had to go to their houses, house-by-house, and pick it up; none wanted to bother to use/borrow/rent ox carts to haul it the 500-2,000 meters to the collection point, a local school. After five hours of this, Patrick gave up and came back without a single bag of rice. As he washed up using the newly installed standpipe, he looked at me and said plaintively, "Let's just close this cooperative and move it to somewhere where people aren't crazy."

This is the same story we've heard (with slight variation) four times over the past month and a half ... our cooperative members, who in May are anxious for us to purchase rice, who set the prices per kg, and so forth, end up balking when we actually come, cash-in-hand, to purchase the rice. They want us to bring a vehicle right to their doorstep; they want higher-than-market prices; they want us to wait around in the village for at least a week while they're at a church meeting, funeral, etc. No one seems to remember all the running around we do with trainings, meetings, input distribution, developing a steady market, etc., etc. It smacks of dependency.

Yes, I'm going to finally break down and use that word. Call me what you will, but I've seen in the five years I've physically worked in rural Zambia, and particularly this past year here in Senanga, I've seen that most of the problems with agricultural diversification, agri-business, and agriculture as a whole stem partly from external contexts (i.e., economics, government ag. policies, climate, etc.). Yes, they are bad. Yes, this is Africa (TIA). However, it's not like there's a drought every year (the last serious one was seven years ago). It's not like the rains haven't happened at the same time every year. It's not like people have more or less fertilizer (it's pretty much zero anyway). It's not like they aren't bombarded with messages / trainings about soil improvement (e.g. agroforestry, sustainable ag., etc), higher-yielding varieties, improved farming techniques, etc. I realize that there is an element of farmer conservatism in every society, which is to say you do what your parents did out of aversion to risk. However, what I see in this area goes beyond that; almost to a man, people here have a tendency to curse the darkness and wait for someone else to light the candle. Sure, we'll sell you rice, but only if you come pick it up, winnow it yourself, and pay us a really good price. In the meantime, next time you come to train us in rice production intensification, bring us a couple crates of Coke and some broiler chicken, the meal you served us last time was no good.

But to quote Pogo ... "We have met the enemy, and he is us." It is not surprising that many Zambians are dependent, because it has been likely the biggest per capita recipient of non-military aid in sub-Saharan Africa, if not the world. In the 100km strip between Mongu and Senanga, it's particularly bad; it's the only decent road in Western Province, so NGOs tend to focus on the villages adjacent to the tarmac (driving in this sand is absolute hell on vehicles). When you have multiple agencies competing over the same villagers (or should I say, the select few villagers who represent the top of rural hierarchy), the agencies have to constantly one-up one another in terms of compensating the villagers (for what lost time, I'm not sure ... no one has a job). Bringing white maize meal for a training (despite farmers having / eating maize nearly every day)? No problem. Meat / white chicken? No problem. Sitting fees for attending trainings? We can do that. Bicycles for "volunteers" to monitor other farmers? We're on it. Fertilizers? Seeds? We'll bring them, but promise to pay the loan back this year, okay?

The sad part is that any interaction between an agency (either government or non-governmental) and the village-level has become laden with expectations that divert from the actual point of any intervention. An training about agriculture in any way, shape, or form, has less to do with the point of learning something than the immediate outcomes of the trainings themselves. Why does it continue? Pogo, if you will? 
"We have met the enemy, and he is us."

Donor funds must be justified, esp. in these days where unemployment is driving American youth onto the streets; there's not that much cabbage floating around anymore, and everyone's fighting for a chunk. How do you get those funds? You count as many beans as possible to justify your existence, and if it isn't enough, you go find more beans to count. It is not an atmosphere that lends itself to introspection, quality, etc.; it's more on the scope of fast, hard primary impacts. More nets? More notebooks? More tools? Hence, you read more about trainings, distributions, donations, etc. Trickier topics such as adoption or livelihood improvement are harder to quantify and usually logged under so-called success stories. One of our big challenges with Conservation Agriculture is trying to actually measure the "real" adoption rate ... how many our expanding their fields or adopting spontaneously, rather than out of a desire to receive inputs.

Sorry for the tangent, but you have to get these things off your chest. The next day, we climbed up out of the valley for a bit and did an agroforestry training in Kaeya; I pulled off my whole demonstration without giving away a single planting pot or seed, but rather leaving it up to them.  If they want to go into town, collect F. albida seeds and old beer packs to make nurseries, go through the effort of watering and planting, then we are on are way (some have). If not, try something else.

Assess the local situation hard. Present workable options. Give advice on those options. Be on hand to encourage. Acknowledge failure and alter tactics. Keep trying ... but don't give anything away.

At least the standpipe got installed alright.