2017-06-12 African Forest Forum / Forestry Development Authority - Rapid Forest Carbon Stock Appraisal Opening Speech

The following is a more or less verbatim account of the speech I gave today as a substitute for our Country Director at Rapid Forest Carbon Stock Appraisal (RaCSA) workshop being hosted by the African Forest Forum in Monrovia. 

The Managing Director of the Forestry Development Authority;

The Chairman of the AFF Secretariat;

The ****** (fill in according to attendees);

Ladies and gentlemen, may I simply say ... "All protocols observed".

******** 

Dr. Mary Molokwu-Odozi expresses her sincerest apologies for her unfortunate absence today due to 

her very crowded schedule. I hope that my few words may suffice on both her behalf and for Fauna 

& Flora International.

*********

My name is Carl Wahl, and I am currently serving as FFI's Project Manager for the Wonegizi REDD+ Pilot Project in Lofa County. Though I am relatively young as a West African, I am somewhat aged as a Southern African, having spent twelve years working mainly in the Republic of Zambia, but also in the Republic of Malawi and the Republic of Mozambique, respectively. 

It is a privilege to stand before you and discuss the fundamental aspects of trees and forests in Liberia, a country recognized as the last bastion of West Africa's forests, specifically, the Western Guinean Lowland forest ecoregion which encompasses nearly 100% of the Liberian nation. And, although it it is repetitive to say it, Liberia, despite her relatively small size, contains nearly half of the forest in West Africa. 

However, these facts are a poor representation of the awe-inspiring nature within the forests themselves. In the past eight months, I have had the privilege to periodically work with demarcation and carbon-assessment teams in and around the Wonegizi Proposed Protected Area. What I see on those trips are sights that are worthy of the same acclaim as the Redwood Forests in the United States, or the massive temperate rainforests of southeast Alaska where I worked as a US Forest Service Forest Ranger. In Wonegizi I have seen absolutely mindblowing profusions of trees of gargantuan proportions, with root buttresses spreading 10 to 15 meters across the forest floor, bearing up trunks of trees of more than a meter and a half in diameter stretching in height to 40 meters or more. Within these forest strongholds exists such a diversity of life, both known and unknown, that enumerating it would take far more than the short time alloted to me.  

Unfortunately, this walls of this bastion of forests are slowly crumbling. In some cases it is the exportation from the forest of a local or international commodity, such as timber, precious minerals or bushmeat. In others, it is the crowding in of a growing population clearing forested land to grow crops to support their families. Though I may be struck down for saying this as a conservationist, I feel an sense of empathy with either case; both my grandfather and my great-grandfather were loggers who along with many other men at that time exploited the great pine forests of Northern and Upper Michigan in order to provide for their families, send their children to school, and in a small sense, contribute to the development of the American nation. In that sense, a Liberian family or the Liberian nation is no different from my ancestors in that they are capitalizing on the highest value forest resources to perpetuate and improve their families livelihoods. 

What spurs this explotation? In simple terms, I would say that currently there is relatively little value for leaving the forest or the forest resources alone, or even for sustainable offtake of forest resources. Rather, a poor person looking for money to put clothes on their childrens' back, pay for their children's schoold fees, or to purchase seed rice to plant their fields, ends up being coerced by his or her poverty to exploit whatever available resources are at hand in order to meet those most pressing needs. When this poverty is multiplied across a village, a town, a clan, a district, a county, or a country, the forests literally suffer death from a thousand cuts. 

I want to emphasize this fact: currently in Liberia, forests only yield monetary returns upon removal of a forest resource from the forest base. In a society that is increasingly joining the monetized global economy, there is almost no compelling reason for a citizen not to protect or sustain these resources. 

This is the fundamental heart of the ideas underlying the principles of Payment for Ecosystems Services. Whether it be a conservation agreement with a protected area, or a national benefits sharing mechanism for monies received from the sale of carbon credits, PES represents a series of mechanisms whereby nations with extensive forest resources such as Liberia can commodify these services that we have heretofore taken for granted; provision of clean water, provision of clean air, stabilizing the soil and agricultural base, regulation of pest and disease outbreaks, and the like. In this specific workshop, the enumeration of Liberia's forest carbon stocks will no doubt be the primary focus of discussion. This is a critical first step in the long process of developing the national carbon market to the state at which Liberia governments, communities and individual citizens can actually see benefits from the act of positive management of forest resources as a viable alternative to unsustainable exploitation. 

Payment for ecosystem services is still a new thing, not only in West Africa, but the world as whole. Therefore, I would like to urge the assembled attendees to approach this workshop with an attentive and open mindset so that we can make Liberia a pioneer of payment for ecosystems services to which the region and the Continent may look to as an example!

With that, I would like to thank the assembled participants, our facilitators from the African Forest Forum, our hosts from the Forestry Development Authority for allowing me to declare this workshop officially open. 

January 18, 2017 - The Love of Liberty Brought Us Here, Part II

(This post was originally started on the 13th November, then I trailed off ... see below)
[Nov 13]
We're having a bit of a day off today; Monrovia rolls up its proverbial sidewalks on Sundays, with the local populace engaged mainly in church through the morning and well into the afternoon (one universality among African Christian is they scrimp not on worship of the Lord). It is not entirely ubiquitous; others relax with their families, men play football [soccer] with friends, girls clubs play kickball in the afternoons, etc. There is the mistaken aspect of ubiquity as churches are plentiful, few business are open, streetside vendors are far fewer, and church-goers are dressed to the nines ... men ill-fitted in their best suits, second-hand affairs that fit their spare frames like boxes, women well-fitted in the explosion of color that serves as the Continent-wide feminine sartorial expression.

Speaking of boxy suits; as is my wont, I mainline news via the television (we activated our DSTV subscription) and through the internet. It seems that something major happened this past week; a man who had been treated as a clown and buffoon for most of the over-long primary election season and then was summarily reviled by the mainstream media as a misogynist, racist, protectionist incompetent gained more than half of the electoral voting population's ballots (there is an ongoing outcry against the electoral college, as for the second time in living memory, the President-elect apparently did not win the popular vote). Since the world woke up to the changed reality Wednesday morning, there has been a significant uptick in urban protests against the as-of-yet-inaugurated administration, with a concurrent level of anxiety attendant to Balzac's oft-misquoted expression that "Our greatest fears lie in anticipation".

I'm not much of a political wonk; you lose a bit of connection to politics when you are not in the States, and our interregnum period in D.C. between February and August (punctuated by a month in Zambia in July) was nestled in the bosom of Democratic leanings ...D.C. polled something like 90% for Clinton. Most of our handful of friends, inclusive of government workers, NGO types, etc., thought little of the GOP candidate's chances, trusting in the fundamental goodness of the American voter to, if at least not like Clinton, to vote for her as a rejection of the unprecedented crassness of her opponent.

[Jan. 18]
A few days off now from the Inauguration. The import of the job hasn't seemed to wear off on The Box yet. He has since the election tweeted what seems to be endlessly (I would count, but holding the pg dn key still took forever to scroll through the list). They say he's redefining how the presidency interacts with the media; from what I can gather, that means we'll get 160 characters assembled into Tweets that resemble little more than what they are ... electronic shouts, digital soundbites that gain enormous, albeit temporal, weight through unseen algorithms and news cycles that hone in on each shout as if it was some gravitational singularity. Then a day later, another Shweet, another blurb, and something new to pay attention to. A week, two weeks, the collective number of chaotic Shweets (or Shwits?) have overwhelmed your capacity to discern a pattern to the Shwit. The mistaken assumption is that there is no pattern - that it's a massive, random cloud of Shwit. All the way around the world from that, the chaos is the pattern. Keep everybody guessing. Keep everyone following conspiracy theories down rabbit holes. Systematic vs. direct causation.

... Nearly a decade ago when working with the USFS in Ketchikan, Alaska, my crew of YCC workers were helping with the cabin / rec team to restock the firewood on a spit of the mainland east of Revillagiggedo Island. On the return trip quartering southeast towards Clover Pass, our shallow-draught landing craft was suddenly surrounded by piling water, an unfortunate regularity in the Behm Channel with its demonic combinations of tide, currents, and wind. We were fortunate to have a man named Abele (pr. "able") at the tiller who, after hollering at us to clear the scuppers and "button-up" (secure our emergency flotation jackets), took us up on a broad northeastern arc around the mess. However, it was touch-and-go, with waves coming over the gunwales and desperate glances between Abele and I over the head of the crew (who thought it was a fun ride, oh to be young).

I think now some ephemeral waves are piling up around us. In the waves, I had few thoughts other than that crystallising awareness of the thin veil between this life and the next (the flotation suits gave us 20 minutes before we went into hypothermic shock). When you have the appearance of confusion and panic, you do tend to shut down and focus on aspects which you perceive as pre-eminent to your survival, or lesser so, your persistence in a given state.

You can worry persistently about the Box and his ideologies, but I wonder if not his campaign was quite simply his salemanship at work. He was selling a product ... himself. Hats off ... he did it in spite of very limited endorsement, celebrity or political (both rendered somewhat meaningless in this campaign; the prideful part of me that reads books, published a thesis, and entering arguably a third career in developing countries has a good ol' boys dislike of some smug know-it-all talking down at you). He won; he sold himself.

Now to unwrap the package and see if it's snake-oil or substance.

[ .... ]

Boy, this is going nowhere slow.

Liberia. So much to process, but as per my earlier anecdote, you pare it down to the basic necessities. As a student of configurations, I both reject and succumb to the absurd Western practice of treating both Africa the continent, and by proxy, Africans, as a collective whole ... scratch that. I have neither the sufficient imagination, nor the gullibility, to suppose on how people are in Cote D'Ivoire or Sierra Leone. All I know is Zambia, bits of Malawi, and now Liberia. As per the configuration terminology, what "resonates"?

(Harmonies - similar between the two)

1. Love of carbohydrates in ample quantities;
2. Street vendors;
3. Daily subsistence allowances;
4. Supremacy of vehicles as a determination of class;
5. Availability and quality of lager beer;
6. Church;
7. Basic respect between individuals that mandates greetings and basic respect prior to interacting;
8. Too many convoys on crowded streets; 

(Discordant ... Discordia; here vs. [...] there)

1. History, pt. 1 great social / political disruption ... none
2. History, pt. 2 (America ... UK) 
3. Stout beer that is more like a burnt porter;
4. Rice ... maize;
5. Cassava rendered edible in six ways [fresh, roasted, fufu, dumbo, GB, gari] ... cassava rendered edible in three [fresh, roasted, nshima];
6. Stews ... separation;
7. Humid... Semi-arid ... ;
8. No cows ... cows;
9. Imported foodstuffs ... local production; 
10. Coast ... landlocked;

The preceding post does not reflect the views of the author's employer, Fauna-Flora International. 

October 8, 2016 - The Love of Liberty Brought Us Here

It's been awhile, no?

So, if you might be able to gather from the above, we left the high, dry southern African plateau for the sweltering rain-soaked Grain Coast, as Liberia was once called. It was not a direct move; my girlfriend had to leave Zambia on the 2nd of September, 2015; after a six-month interlude until my contract with Concern Worldwide ended, we sorted the last distribution of inputs using vouchers for the Conservation Agriculture (CA) project I ran in Western Province. In the intervening days or isolated weeks where I was back in Lusaka, a fellow American from Alabama and myself became somewhat proficient at distilling whiskey (moonshine, mountain dew, white lightening, poteen, swish, white dog, steam, kachasu, lutuku, etc., etc.). We didn't do it because of particularly wanting a drink (there is no lack in either quantity or diversity of drinkable beverages in Lusaka); it was more like why I suppose people climb mountains, e.g., to see if they can do it.

Anyway, it was a dry rainy season and by the time I was wrapping up and headed home in February, it was apparent maize yields would be poor in the south and west of the country. I flew home on the coldest weekend of the year, packing my bags and filling up the back of my old pickup in near-record time; I then looped through the Midwest, seeing some friends in northern Wisconsin, giving a talk to some relatively wide-eyed Soil Science graduate students, catching up with former classmates, seeing my sister and her family in South Bend, IN. I then drove to Washington, D.C. to move into our new apartment with my girlfriend and to begin what I thought would be a relatively easy job search in the D.C. Metro area. Of course I can get a job! I have years of development experience! Hire me before someone else does!

To zip through that in a hurry ... it doesn't work like that. To summarize:

1. Had to figure out Obamacare ... wow, no wonder people are upset. It's neither clear nor cheap, and I had a number of odd health issues, none of which I had in Zambia, but fell on me in the States. To put it mildly, not having great insurance and no job still means you get crummy health care and weird bills that you're obliged to pay for.
2. Full-time jobs in D.C. are available, but the competition is stiff and for the most part, online. Having not had to apply for a job in a number of years, I was more than a bit rusty, particularly with the online bits. I shaped up my LinkedIn profile, worked on my resume, had a number of first interviews, screwed up quite a lot, etc. Overall, I got back into fighting shape, but the job market in international development when your 39 in 2016 is far different from the job market in computer programming when your 22 in 1999. The intervening years are not kind; the market likes the young up-and-comers, and ofttimes we'd get home aching and footsore from job fairs asking ourselves what the point had been. It was almost sheer luck my girlfriend found the current job I've started with Fauna-Flora International (FFI from here out, folks), and thank God, was the timing right. We had both reached the bottom of our respective wells of patience after six months and nearly 200 applications between us, and had I not pulled through on FFI ... well, you don't think about what may or may not have happened, but again, thank God. 
3. In the meantime, D.C. is not a cheap place to live. We were lucky to have one job that though part-time, had bonus pay in the form of groceries. We both temp'ed, something which is, though not quite as bad as substitute teaching (which I did 13 years ago), was really hard on my pride. You fill printers, sort office supply closets, work as a receptionist, answer phones, smile hard (though not crazy) at everyone in the hopes they will hire you back, because at minimum wage in D.C. ($11/hr) you need a solid 20 days of work just to cover rent. In the meantime, we did whatever else we could; I refurbished cast iron cookware and resold it both on the Internet and at neighborhood flea markets over the weekend (something that was facilitated by Paypal Here, as urban America is increasingly a cashless society); I did lawn maintenance for generous friends part-time; I helped an old man in Silver Spring, MD prep his garden, etc. Getting part-time work other than temp'ing often seemed even more ephemeral than full-time work; who wants a 39-year old bartender with a heavily-salted beard and graying temples facing the customers?

Please don't take me wrong; there was a lot of good in the District (many of the old expressions the old farmer used wore off on me, such as his reference to WSHDC as "the District"). Again, we had very solid friends, everything is literally right at hand (though devastatingly expensive), we had family nearby, etc. As a recent lover of gardens and growing things, and as an old lover of American history, the District is a treasure trove. Our neighborhood of Takoma Park, was a few short blocks from Fort Stevens, a shockingly close shave of a Confederate campaign to take D.C. in 1864. Lovely place all-in-all, but just not the right place for us at the present time.

At this point, too, it serves to note that for me personally, America has grown a bit strange in the long period since I was fully ensconced in the place (my two years at Madison aside, particularly as I was so heavily invested in the study of Southern Africa in general and Zambia in particular. The ongoing national election which is front and center at all times and all newsfeeds has been in a word, shocking; the abyssal depths of crudity and mean-spirits to which one of the candidates (He-who-will-not-be-named) continues to plumb is disgusting; however, what's worse for me is the torrent of hate which his excavations have revealed. My fellow Americans have, from my relatively distant view, have developed a worrying tolerance for, and acceptance of, fear and hatred. Worse still is the absolute loss of dialogue and reasoning in a country that most of the rest of the world that I've experienced aspires towards as a better model. What happens when that model rolls in the gutter and covers itself with excreta in a near jubilant fashion? I love my country and my home deeply, but my heart aches and worries for her in this strange view from abroad. 

So ... Liberia. The Love of Liberty Brought Us Here. Well, that's a topic for a bit later.

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This post and it's content are the thoughts and opinions of the author alone, and are not condoned or endorsed in any way by his employer, Fauna and Flora International.

April 19th, 2016 - The Maize Front

It has been difficult to be away from Zambia in what is turning out to be a crucial year in the continuing saga of maize: 

• Zambia announced back on the 6th (April) that maize exports, inclusive of bran, the by products of milling off the endocarp when making white (breakfast meal);
• Maize prices in Zambia are allegedly going to be controlled by government, but the routine of cross-border smuggling (through buyers purchasing at retail and reselling in DRC and Malawi) from two years ago and last year is replaying on a much greater scale;
• Queues for maize meal have been increasing, with buyers at supermarkets (e.g., Shoprite, Pick-n-Pay, etc.) limited to one 25kg bag per person;
• Prices have gone through the roof for the commodity, particularly in southwest and western Zambia, with 25kg of mealie meal selling at K200 ($21.39USD);
• Farmers in the same region as above are selling cows ... something of a !! because only better off have cows and they are not usually sold unless they are on death's door. "Prices" are in barter; families are getting 4 or 5 bags of maize (unmilled) for a single cow. This represents a kwacha value of K280 to K350 ($30 ~ $37.4 USD) per cow, as reported on-the-ground from Mwandi, west of Livingstone.

Word from ZNFU:

CME Soya futures price for May 2016 delivery opened trading at US$354.21/MT on 18th April 2016.

Local Soya beans spot prices were still hovering around ZMW5, 900-6,400/MT ($630 - 684USD) last week according to information captured on the ZNFU market price information system.

...

Malawi is forecasting a further reduction in its maize output this year. The country’s production estimates are currently around 2.43 million tons against a national consumption requirement estimated at 3.2 million tons. Zambia has been a major source of the maize grain to Malawi over the last year through both formal and informal trade. Meanwhile the Malawian President on 12th April declared a state of national disaster as the northern part of the country experiences floods and the southern drought.

On the local scene GRZ through Ministry of Agriculture is expected to issue a Statutory Instrument (SI) to facilitate the trading of maize grain and maize products sometime this week. This follows recent announcement by the Ministry of Agriculture that the country had adequate stocks to meet the national demand for maize.

 The CME Corn futures price for March 2016 delivery opened trading at US$147.71/MT on 18th April 2016.

 The offer price on the ZNFU market information system was in the range of ZMW 1,300/MT to ZMW 1,900/MT ($139.03 - 203 USD) in the week ending 18th April 2016.

...

AVERAGE DAY OLD CHICK PRICES
... No changes were registered in the price of day old chicks during the course of the week. However, day old chick outlets/agents have indicated that there has been a significant drop in the sales of day old chicks this year mainly caused by the increased cost of production, particularly increased cost of feed which some of the small scale farmers cannot keep up with.

March 12, 2016 - The People's Republic of Takoma Park

Welcome back dear readers, and my apologies for the delay. I left the pleasant, sun-soaked environs of Zambia for the brutal cold of Upper Michigan, leaving Lusaka on the 10th and arriving as the world turned in Kinross by the afternoon of the 11th. Since then, I drove from the Eastern Upper Peninsula of Michigan through Wisconsin, seeing friends, giving a seminar on Zambia to admittedly bamboozled Soil Science grad students, then through Chicago nearly killing myself and others when a brake line gave out on US-12, then off to my sister and bro-in-law's place in South Bend, Indiana. By the 22nd of last month, I turned the Ranger east and drove 622 miles to ... Washington, D.C. Yes; the center of the world, as Mongu once was, Lusaka, etc. Specifically, to Takoma Park where my partner found us what is known as an "English Basement". After our run of cold weather and a light dusting of snow, I was curious as to whether that moniker referred to either the heating system or utter lack of insulation, but I'll let that one go ... imagine this place will be an oasis when Washington's infamous muggy summer gets going. 

Being here is something of a trip; there are no Faidherbia albida, no Julbernardia, no Brachystegia; relatively few off-shaped decurrent trees whatsoever, more of the Acer, Querus, Pinus, varieties. Far more cars, though better-organized traffic than Lusaka. More Mexican restaurants (yay, but expected) and quite a number of Ethiopian (yay, unexpected). Convenience and 'right now' seem to be the order of the day; it's hard for me to hear people complain about Washington's light rail system, the Metro; to me it is a shining example of organization and efficiency. I am blown away that I can get on the red line (a five minute walk from my doorstep) and in less than an hour get anywhere in the city (and relative to Chicago's El[evated] train, without the pitching and yawing I would expect). I am learning that the District is spatially very much a small city, albeit one with both the visible trappings of power (the Romanesque buildings, the politicians, the relative cleanliness). With a bike, one might circumnavigate the District in a half-day or so; though with a car this same activity could be a lesson in frustration, as the surrounding suburbs of the greater "DC Metropolitan area" in Maryland and northern Virginia contribute a staggering amount of traffic to the region; we were on 495 on Sunday, typically considered an easy day for driving, and there was still stupendous traffic. 

I'll contribute more later, but except for a bout with a nasty head cold, I've been trying to stay busy with meetings (e.g., USAID F2F discussions, ICT4D, Africa Restoration Project, etc., etc.), applying for jobs (both part-time and full-time), and volunteering with Casey Trees. Trying to stay out in with people, meet new people, and stay fresh with agriculture, both the local urban scene and with stuff back in Africa. 

And making cornbread: 

And photographing magnolia trees:

January 16th, 2016 - Not a viable field

This blog represents the views of the author's alone, and does not represent the views of his employer, Concern Worldwide.

News from the World of Maize:

Over the past few days, I hosted a friend of mine who works in southwestern Zambia and northern Malawi. He clued me in to some of the bits of information:

1. Maize stocks in Malawi are at spectacularly low levels ... he revealed a date of March 4th as the proverbial D-Day. I did a bit of digging online and FEWSNET has the following concurrence Currently food insecure populations in 12 districts spanning parts of the southern and northern regions are receiving assistance. Response programming to these areas and an additional 13 districts have enough funding for implementation through February 2016. Assistance originally planned for the month of March 2016 is uncertain due to a remaining 25 percent funding shortfall
2. It was interesting the deadline of March, which is keyed to the availability of direct budgetary aid, something which the Malawian government relies on to a greater extant that most countries in the region, a by-product of not being blessed [cursed] with mineral or other resources of the extraction variety. Part of what R. said got me trolling through the web; it appears that Malawi's President Peter Mutharika is under pressure to accept donor aid, particularly from DFiD, with some strings attached, namely that Malawi decriminalizes homosexuality. This has caused quite a stir in what I consider a significantly more conservative country than Zambia. According to the BBC, a moratorium was enacted on the laws, but full repeal of the law is a huge issue of realpolitik for Mutharika, who risks incredible backlash on the issue against both himself and threatened recrimination against the LGBT community. 
3. This has been accompanied by a steady rise of maize prices on the market (as is the case in Zambia) that has not been helped by the suspension of sales from ADMARC, Malawi's parastatal [government-run] agriculture marketing board which is by the largest buyer and seller of maize in the country. This has been exacerbated by the theft of maize by local ADMARC officers.

This morning, four hours after we parted ways, he sent this he sent this chilling text as he drove through Southern Province:

"Country is f***ed, not one viable maize field from Maz[abuka] to Choma, brutal!"

11 January 2016 - 30 Days to Go

The views expressed on this blog are those of the author along, and do not reflect the views of his employer, Concern Worldwide.

Happy New Year's! You patient and erstwhile readers ... 

My last day of work for Concern Worldwide Zambia is 29th January, and I have a plane ticket home booked on the 10th February. Goodbye, Zambia after 12 years. As such, I made a solemn oath to myself to write a blog post and journal entry every day, if for nothing else to remember sometime in the dim and likely more brutal future what I was experiencing these last few weeks. 

It is strange; in some ways, the process of disengaging oneself from a place and a context of cultures (Lozi, Tonga, Kaonde, Lala, Indian, White African, Chinese, ex-pat, et cetera) is that you run through the process of engagement, albeit in reverse. Maybe it's the odd way my mind works ... but separating yourself from what everyday amateur sociologists refer to as a "space" brings you back up the path from where that space was normal. E.g., you start to shed your expectations / assumptions of how people behave, how the world should work, how to begin and end things, how to speak with someone, and so on. In my case, I have become far less stressed and far more forgiving because there is an end (at least here) to the crazy results-based tilt-a-whirl that you climb on in the donor-funded development world. On the 29th, I will climb off, handover the reins to my replacement, and have 12 days to blink and think, and to wonder to myself, as I do over most of my memories ... Was it all real? Did I do that? How did I do that? What happened to all those people? Did I make a difference? Will they remember me? 

Unfortunately, deep pondering is something I can little afford whilst trying to sell my worldly possessions (mainly a car, a bicycle, and a bookshelf), handing over 12 years of agroecological experience, and looking for a new job in my soon-to-be new home, Washington, D.C. Hence the necessity and the catharsis ingrained in typing these things out ... it's 20-40 minutes where part of me steps back and views the passage of this vessel through this life, and marks somewhat cohesively which course it chose and why.

Outside of my head, we traveled en-masse from Lusaka to Mongu in one of the agency's Land Cruisers yesterday, leaving at 8:20a and arriving at 5:20p (17:20hrs). Along the way, it started raining west of Kaoma, and it rained intermittently for the rest of the journey. Mongu is a lovely place when it rains; the sandy streets and shoulders of the main roads flatten out and become hard enough to walk upon easily; the air clears of its load of dust and soot, and the grass! Oh, does it grow ... especially in the semi-divinity of the floodplains and along it's margins, the matongo and shishanjo areas.

Before leaving, I took a swipe (pardon the upcoming pun) at what some friends of mine at Grassroots Trust have been promoting and to which I'm slowly signing onto ... the idea that instead of the usual digging operation that is inherent in Zambian weeding cultivation, e.g. "hoeing" or "weeding", you engage in slashing the weeds in the interrow (the space between the lines of maize). I learned this entirely from my friend Sebastian Scott, who like me keeps something of a blog on how to do agriculture in a way that is ultra-conservative of organic matter, inclusive of weed growth. To make a long story short, I intercropped orange maize with black sunnhemp, a heavy nitrogen fixer in our small plot next to our office in Kalundu. Though we've had limited rains in Lusaka, my raking the area into rough terraces and the shade from the trees in the area have helped the maize, and it is surprisingly healthy. Anyway, after watering the little office garden (more on that some other time), I had 30 minutes to slash the sunnhemp down, though  being the total idiot that I am, I neglected to take before (only after) photos.

So what you are looking at is the remnants of the weeds that were before slashing at the same height as the maize. though I am by no means experienced with the one-handed slasher common in Zambia, it was relatively quick to figure out how to slash, e.g. a short swing, standing behind one row of maize and slashing the next, etc. What's left behind is a green mulch that hopefully with contact with the wet soils add a bit of nutrients to the slightly nitrogen deprived maize. More importantly, however, is the increase in light reach the maize leaves vis-a-vi the decrease in shading by plants in the interrow. Last, but not least, I was impressed by the ease of it ... rather than being hunched over hoeing, digging and lifting a blunt piece of dumb iron, I was upright swinging the slasher in short strokes. Noticeably harder on the forearms, but I would trade that any day for the ache in the back, the sore hands, the exhaustion and the time.

Anxious to see how this turns out. 

January 1st, 2016 - A Bleak Start to the New Year

The views expressed on this blog are the author's alone and do not reflect the views of his employer, Concern Worldwide.

Lusaka remains cursed by sunshine on this dawn the New Year in Zambia. Sitting up last night with friends listening to Zambians shooting off fireworks in the revelry, we looked up a sky chock full of stars and reflected on the oddity of that; typically, this time of year is cloudy, gray, cool, rainy, etc. Instead, we've had bright, blue, hot, dry, etc. To this day, I still cannot puzzle out the workings of the ITCZ, but the best I can figure is that current ENSO (el Nino) is holding the zone in a kinked, stable position ... this means that the frontal boundary (for lack of a better word) moist air that brings rain is not moving south from a roughly in a east-west line centered on Kabwe. Though Zambia historically has a increasing rainfall gradient as you move south-to-north, this year it seems to be less of a smooth linear, and rather a sudden step from too dry to too wet; further, the dry areas are mostly in the West and South.

This has piled on to the crummy rainy season those same areas had in 2014/2015 (which I can now safely refer to as "last year's season"). Most of those areas, particularly in Western Province, were long-ago declared "disaster drought" (GRZ, inclusive of nearly every district survey other than Mongu) or "stressed" (in the terminology of FEWSNET). My friends in the southwestern arc of the Upper Zambezi (e.g., Kazangula, Mwandi, Sesheke) along the Botswana and Namibian border told me over the Holidays that there aren't many words left to describe how bad it is there; ominously, their planting rains never really started, so much of their maize is already dead before the V3 stage. Long and short, people are desperately hungry and have been for quite some time; unfortunately, this year seems to be shaping up to be a bad one in both buLozi and buTonga.

Funny enough, no one seems to notice. There's really been nothing in the papers, including the Post, which has turned its back on the "Real PF" and returned to its virulently anti-ruling party roots; nothing from the donor community; nothing from the government outside of what anecdotal evidence suggests is entirely stochastic; nothing from the Barotse Royal Establishment. It's a wall of silence that is deafening in its sheer immensity, behind which despairing people are perched on a precarious cliff of hunger; it's only so much time before the West and South face the full-blown spectre of starvation. Those same people's (at least strong and healthy enough to do so) efforts are fully in engaged in warding off that hunger with any means at hand, meaning the natural environment is taking the worst beating in years. The so-called "Fish Ban", the eponymous policy that forbids capture fishing of wild fish stocks in virtually all forms between December 1st. and March 1st, is now in its second year of being totally, even brazenly, ignored. Charcoal burning is so rampant that finding Julbernardia or Brachestygia specimens of any size within 50km of Mongu is now an impossibility. Logging has increased exponentially within the five years I have been in Western, particularly of the Guibourtia coleosperma (Zambezi rosewood, copalwood, false mopane) ... baulks measuring a meter square and at least 2.5 meters long are being hauled out of the Kalahari woodlands to the main road in at least four places that I observed last month. In that sense, the lack of capital is driving localized environmental degradation that exacerbates any potential global climate change, and kneecaps future generations ability to utilize those same resources.

And the poorer? The poorest? The single female mothers? The elderly raising a household of orphans? I see them each time I go out in the field; their eyes betray the slow panic that is the constant twinge of hunger that is never dissipated and rarely dulled. Waking up dizzy and out of sorts, wondering where to look for some daily labor to try to feed their family, hoping that they can manage the work on the one to three hours of available energy they have, leaving nothing in the tank for tilling their own land. How do you plan in that state? How do you adopt a new technology? And yet they remain, cursed with the Zambian trait of waiting on government, hoping the truck comes their way, hoping they get a food pack.

I distinctly remember the late President Michael Sata declaring early in his presidency that where there was hunger, there could be no justice. It is my fervent hope that the government will recall that statement and see fit to be just.

21 December - Prioritising in Agriculture

The views expressed on this blog are the author's alone and do not reflect the views or opinions of his employer, Concern Worldwide.

A recent editorial in the Post ... as usual, my comments in red among the text.

Chinese Ambassador to Zambia Yang Youming is urging Zambia to prioritise agriculture as it is essential to the development of any nation.

“In terms of development of agriculture and this is the basis of economic takeoff in China because when we talk about the economic miracle in China, we always talk about industrialisation in China and China being the main manufacturing base for commodities to be exported to the entire world. But we must remember the first thing we emphasise is that we should have a solid agricultural base because you have to provide food and clothing to our people. And food and clothing all come from agriculture, so agriculture has always been and will remain a priority area,” says Ambassador Yang.

For Zambia, we have no sensible alternative to prioritising agriculture. The great majority of our people are dependent on agriculture for survival. Eight five [85%] per cent of our country’s workforce is in agriculture. And only six per cent of our labour force is deployed in the industry. The remaining nine per cent is in services.

The argument CFU makes is that most of these people in agriculture are not "farmers" per se, e.g. the production of food, fuel and/or fibre is not the primary goal of their farming endeavors. There is some truth to that, but the letter of the article is fundamentally correct ... they are growing crops for survival, e.g. food. Disqualifying someone as a farmer is all well and good, but it remains the essential means of survival for the overwhelming majority of rural Zambians.

But despite 85 per cent of our people being deployed in agriculture, the sector’s contribution to our GDP is only 19.80 per cent. The contribution to our GDP by industry and services is far above that of agriculture - 33.80 per cent for industry and 46.5 per cent for services. How can a sector in which 85 per cent of our workforce is deployed account for less than 20 per cent of our GDP? Despite 85 per cent of our workforce being deployed in agriculture, only 4.52 per cent of our arable land is under use. And only 0.05 per cent of that land has permanent crops. And with so much water, only 1,559 square kilometres is irrigated land.

There is some funny math at work here ... would be interesting how you count maize (the faraway leader in crops planted by that 85%) after taking away government subsidies on the production and consumption of the same. Most of what IAPRI says is that the majority of those 85% don't produce a surplus for sale. So ... huge labor force contributing almost nothing to the GDP.

It is clear that we have not prioritised agriculture. The contribution of agriculture to our GDP is too low and more so given its great potential. With 85 per cent of our workforce deployed in agriculture, it means that agriculture is the major source of livelihood for the great majority of Zambians who today, over 60 per cent of them live in abject poverty.

This means that if we have to move our people out of poverty, great effort will need to be exerted to increase agricultural production and consequently increase incomes of the majority poor who are totally dependent on agriculture for survival. This will call for consistent and sustainable high productivity growth in agriculture.

Okay, a bit of funny logic at work here; bunch of people do agriculture, ergo, improving agriculture production will "increase incomes of the majority poor who are totally dependent on agriculture for survival". Most people we work with are a lot like kids on Midwestern farm in the U.S.A. ... once they get the chance, they boost off the farm looking for easier work that pays cash (you would, too if you spent your formulative years swinging a hoe). Even people in rural areas are not likely to engage in sale of farm produce; they may engage in some other livelihood activity. This is where people get the message goobered up ... if you were to, say, get everybody to be a better cabbage farmer, what the hell would they do with all those cabbages? Same really with maize; people, typically the great mass of poor, are really excited when their production equals their consumption levels, or if their production allows them to reach their yearround consumption levels (vis-a-vi sale of their produce). 

To improve agriculture, a lot of things have to change. Our agricultural policies have to change. We can’t continue with the policies that have failed our people and have left them poor over many decades.

Here we go. Policies. As if words on paper can make the soil fertile. 

There will be need for diversification in agriculture. It doesn’t make sense to continue thinking and acting as if maize production is all that agriculture is about. Crop diversification is urgently needed. There is need to promote other crops that can be easily or cheaply grown by our people. And not every part of our country is good for every crop. 

We also need to find markets for all those diverse crops and figure out how to dismantle the great spinning economic, gastronomic, cultural and political engine that maize production and consumption has become. 

There is need to strengthen co-operative structures if we are to improve agriculture, especially for the poor. Efficiently run co-operatives can help a lot in terms of marketing, skills building, research, ICT services, finance, infrastructure and irrigation investment.

Now off to find that cooperative that efficiently uses all those services. "Cooperative" is what I call an automatic word. When you say "cooperative", farmers hear "subsidized inputs". They need to not think of the word "cooperative". Maybe "covenant" or "tontine", though the latter might bring in some interesting repercussions. 

There is also need to focus on crops that will help ensure household and national food security and also provide some surplus for exports. Such crops may include Irish and sweet potatoes, mixed beans, cowpeas, groundnuts, cashew nuts, fruits, in addition to cassava, millet and sorghum.

The contribution of our agriculture to exports is very low. It is just about five per cent. This needs to be increased if we are to see a reversal of economic fortunes.

Of course, crops like sugar, wheat, barley, soya beans, cotton, tea, coffee, tobacco, sunflower and so on and so forth also need policy priority if we are to develop a strong agri-business and light manufacturing.

Sigh. Of all of those, soyabeans, cotton, tobacco and sunflower are within the realm of reason (barely) for a small-scale farmer to grow (the others require irrigation and quite specific management regimes. However, these would be the best-off farmers, those with land and labour to spare. This past week when meeting with farmers, I recognized that the great mass of rural Zambians, who often operate on a quarter-tank with regards to caloric energy, plant maize and cassava because they are a) easy to get and b) provide the most calories. You don't go planting cotton or tobacco when your body's screaming for fuel.

Livestock production also needs to be increased if we are to meet the rising domestic demand and create a surplus for export and increase the incomes of our people. Livestock production calls for improved testing and treatment of all diseases of economic importance for cattle, pigs, goats, sheep and poultry in order to stabilise and increase stocking levels.

Funny enough, it appears that the number of cows in the country could meet demand; it's just that selling cows for money is still at cross-purposes with the fundamentals of cattle possession in the social context; status, non-liquid wealth, the medium of exchange to seal marriage arrangements, etc. Chickens are the way to go; less touchy with the whole gender thing, and villagers are so attached to Lil' Cluck-cluck.

Of late, the Minister of Finance Alexander Chikwanda has shown some increasing interest in fish farming. And the President has also shown some interest in this sector. But more needs to be done to improve fish farming. What is coming out of our fish farms is too little to meet the increasing demand for fish that has been complicated by the depletion of fish stocks in our rivers and lakes.

We agree with Ambassador Yang’s observations on the need to prioritise agriculture. It is a sector in which the great majority of our people are deployed. The poverty that we are experiencing today is a result of poor agriculture. (my opinion poor agriculture practices) If agriculture improves, the poverty levels will equally drop (will they really?). We have low agricultural productivity because the sector is not receiving adequate attention. We are spending over US$300 million per annum subsidising maize. But what are we getting out of that investment as a country? There is no strong political will needed for crop diversification. Too much political opportunism is tied to agricultural policies. Political (and cultural and gastronomic) sensitivities have ridiculously been created around maize production and subsidies. It’s time we stopped cheating our people and took a courageous way out of these sterile agricultural policies that are leading us nowhere other than to the deepening of poverty.

True ... but it's the practices, the capacity of extension to improve practices, and the mentality of how to improve production that are at fault. The Ministry of Agriculture is packed with ghost workers, agriculture officers not at their posts, or agriculture officers who fail to develop, recognize, and / or refine local innovations, etc. It is a system built on the assumption that knowledge comes from on high and should be followed w/out question. I think our constant struggles with CA come from the fact that everyone wants to harmonize the methods (e.g., basins and ripping), rather than understanding the goals likely have multiple opportunities for realization.

Whatever we do, whatever we earn from mining and other sectors, without meaningful developments in agriculture, we are going nowhere and we  will not be able to move our people out of poverty. 

Let's move them out of hunger first. 

Dec. 18, 2015 - Ruminations on CA (my day-to-day)

The opinions expressed below are the author's alone and do not express the views or opinions of his employer, Concern Worldwide.

Just wanted to plop this down, this are some of the things I ponder on the given day-to-day following visits to beneficiaries. It has been an interesting five years, moving one's head from discussions at this level to the visceral day-to-day of the everyman and everywoman farmer. Putting them together is what makes my head spin. 

Sorry for the delay, power has been an issue.

As per D’s email and our discussion, question #2 around the adoption of CA is very interesting but very large, particularly given that CA is three principles that are something of a goal for farmers to achieve by what could be diverse paths (e.g., there are numerous ways to achieve minimum tillage). However, often what tangles up the question of adoption for many CA promoters is why aren’t people adopting “our” way of achieving minimum tillage, soil cover and crop rotation.

A case in point: Why don’t more non-beneficiaries dig basins? Don’t people generally see the improvements from the practice on another’s field? Currently, we target a specific group of beneficiaries (the extreme poor), they receive trainings and inputs, then dig basins in which they apply the inputs and plant the seeds we’ve given them. Typically, those beneficiaries will carry on some of the practices we promote over the longer term, particularly around digging basins for maize production. However, most non-beneficiaries won’t dig basins … as far as we can tell, they are waiting for participation in the programme (e.g. the attention given to beneficiaries in terms of inputs and training). We noted this week that our even better-off lead farmers have almost no concept of “projects”, project lifetime or the hard facts around funding … consequently, they are often confused why projects come to an end before the entire community has been included in a project. Put shortly, we need to examine our approaches to promoting CA as well as the barriers to what we are promoting, otherwise our promotion in and of itself may be a barrier to adoption.

To put a fine point on it, we know that there are considerable barriers that hinder the adoption of certain practices, even within beneficiaries (I know it is not attractive to Accenture, but the preliminary work we’ve done with consumption support suggests that not only are most people food insecure during the farming season, they operate on such an empty tank that it’s amazing they dig any basins). However, I think what we need to take a longer view of:

a.       The various farming systems, landscapes, etc. (agroecology) to understand primarily why people do what they currently do and what would be the most appropriate CA-related interventions;

b.      How knowledge and information is shared among people (e.g., group, individual, parent to child, etc., etc.)

c.       How to approach (a) utilizing those knowledge networks (b) to plan and design your programme. 

As for research question #3, there’s parts that I think are extremely valuable in a business case, which my brain boils down to primarily “Money invested in farmer < Money realized by farmer” and secondarily as “Farmers doing CA GHG emissions < Farmers not doing CA GHC emissions”. We generally would see that, but we have to assume (as is sadly the case now in Western Province) that food aid is not reaching most of our communities; from what I hear on the ground, relief packs are trickling in, but packs are being split between two families. However, we do know that most of our farmers are net buyers of food and/or engage in daily labour “piecework” in hopes of achieving their daily bread. If we’re looking at return on investments, I feel we need to consider those as outcomes vs. an abstract measure of food aid (e.g., does an investment in a farmer in CA mean they spend less money on food and less on piecework in the next season.

Another point on the GHGs specifically to the Zambia, much of the impact of last years’ drought was the sharp uptick in charcoal production across the southern half of the country, which is significant for a country with one of the top five deforestation rates in the world. There is something of an argument as to whether charcoal production is demand-driven or supply-driven given our issues with ZESCO, but I would posit that most farmers who don’t have to make charcoal would not make charcoal, but have little other option in light of their HH needs for food, school fees, etc.  Long and short, what would a reduction in charcoal burning do to our GHG balance / emissions?

Lastly, I would narrow down the scope of the first bullet because we need to be cognizant of the difference between economic demographic levels and how that might influence the opportunity costs, rates of return, etc. What we’re picking up (and is a good example of “everything is obvious [once you know the answer]”) from our consumption support pilot is that crop diversification (and derived from that, rotation) is hindered by lack of seeds on one hand, but also the simple mathematics of hunger on another … e.g., when you have roughly two hours of kilojoules available, you focus all of those on your crops that will provide the most kilojoules (maize and cassava). What I’m saying is that I’d rather we avoid repeating the studies I’ve read that look at “CA” vs. “conventional ag” ceritas paribus, e.g. one that is independent of place, and is not cognizant of a household’s capability to measure and make long-term decisions.

Sorry for going on at length.

18 November, 2015 - No rains yet ... and ... ZNFU Agro Watch Notes

This blog represents the views of the author alone, and does not reflect the opinions of his employer, Concern Worldwide. 

Greetings, again dear readers wherever or whoever you may be.

We are still awaiting the "planting rains", three days after a singularly important day on two levels for me as an agriculturalist in Zambia, and as a Yooper. November 15th to the 25th is highly critical for Zambian farmers as it represents the optimal planting window for maize. Why? I'll summarize a few hours worth of training into a few bullets:

• Nitrogen flush:   Once rains kick off, the air and soil temperatures drop off precipitously (a brief aside ... last week I was in mid-40s C temps in Liuwa Plains NP, Kalabo, Mongu, Senanga, Sesheke, Livingstone, and Chirundu ... maybe I'll write briefly about ringing the west and south, maybe not. Anyway, the precipitous drop means soil temps go down to low 30s/high 20s ... still plenty of heating units even in mulched soils). Once these temps drop (and some moisture comes into play), saprotrophs and heterotrophs start breaking down organic material in the soil, which is then  mineralized into plant available forms (plants don't chew raw nutrients ... they suck it up as a solution, another reason moisture is key). Anyway, flush is the real word ... it's there and gone in a hurry as our soil temps are generally high, and in farmed fields, the tradition of burning crop residues prior to planting reduces available organic matter. The microbes essentially eat and reproduce themselves out of house and home in a hurry, even faster if they till the soil (which increases oxidation and mineralization rates by aerobic bacteria. Anyway, long and short is that if you can catch that flush, especially in maize, you get a huge boost in the critical first four weeks of the plant growth, effectively developing a much more effective photosynthetic engine. 

• Daylength:  Maize is a sun-loving plant; not a surprise, given the demands it puts on the photosynthetic outputs (big stalk, heavy cobs, etc). We don't see this much in temperate climes as we have comparatively long summer days (heat and degree days are more the problem). However, in Zambia, days range from 13 hours in the summer (with longer in the south) to 11 hours in the winter. Catching as much sun as possible means more photosynthetic output, and consequently, a bigger plant. Some estimates show that yield loses from planting after November 25th equal 2% of potential yield per day (!). Also, and I'm wandering out onto thin ice, but maize often flowers (depending on the genotypes) based off the daylength, which can mean some plants may flower prior to being "ready" (growth-wise) to flower. It, like all aspects of maize, are somewhat strange and fascinating ... a great thesis from a Zambian student at Iowa State in the late 1980s explains somewhat why tropical maize grown in the temperate zones gets really big (leafy) but produces little (something I've observed as well). 

• Rain: This damnable ENSO (el Nino) event is going to make life miserable for farmers despite rainbows, prayers, days of fasting, etc. (Appealing to the Almighty is understandable and I often do so myself, but the extent that it actively destroys agency and responsibility gets a bit wearisome). Anyway, we are going to have short (late start, early finish) rains, and likely low annual accumulations between October and April, the months in which nearly all the rain falls and which we typically measure. The earlier you plant, and combined with the above, the more of that rain you catch, the better the yield. 

Long and short, plant early ... and not just maize! 

Notes from ZNFU Friday Brief (Week 46) (My notes in red text):

The Minister of Agriculture, Hon. Given Lubinda, MP has assured maize farmers in Zambia that maize markets will still be available for the 2015/2016 crop despite the increasing input costs that farmers are currently experiencing. The Minister said this when ZNFU President, Dr Nguleka and her team presented an Issues paper on the increasing costs of maize production for the 2015/2016 crop at the Ministry of Agriculture on Friday 13^th November 2015. The Minister assured maize farmers that government will allow market forces (demand and supply) to operate in order to ensure farmers get a better price for their crop. Hon. Lubinda observed that farming is a business and government will continue to provide a conducive environment aimed at encouraging further investment in the sector.

I was at the recent IAPRI conference for Western and Southern Provinces (same day) and he (Hon. Lubinda) was in attendance. Welcome relief (I'm on Minister of Agriculture #4 or 5 since 2010) as he seems fairly straightforward, though no one could ever match Bob Sichinga's sensayuma. Anyway, if they want farming to be a business, GRZ needs to pull out of both FISP and FRA. Lubinda gets that, but maize subsidies are like holding the proverbial political wolf by the ears: you don't like it, but you sure as hell don't want to let go.

SUNFLOWER PRODUCTION: THE BLOOMING INDUSTRY

The oilseed stakeholders met on 11^th November at the ZNFU offices to review the market situation of soya beans and other oilseeds. Whilst expressing appreciation the importance of maintaining export relations, the stakeholders agreed that there was need for stakeholder consultations before any exports of soya beans could be allowed so as to support the growth of the soya beans value chain. During the deliberations, the farmers indicated that there was need for traders and processors to enter into pre-planting contracts with the farmers, as uncertainty over the markets affects the farmer’s decision on what quantities of the crop to grow. The farmers were assured that demand of soya beans would be high in 2016 and that some off-takers were ready to sign supply contracts with the farmers.

The stakeholders were informed that there was readily available sunflower market with the demand in 2015 projected at least 50,000MT by oilseed crusher with a potential to expand further should supply increase. Farmers were encouraged to grow high oleic sunflower varieties to attract premium prices.  Stakeholders however bemoaned the inadequate supply of high yielding sunflower seed varieties on the local market and proposed that seed companies should be engaged for sustainable growth of the sunflower industry.

I take some pride in being part of the introduction of sunflowers into Western Province in 2010 and 2011. However, despite it growing fine (if planted early) in Zambia with minimal inputs and efforts, it is still planted on a relatively low scale. The whole out-grower scheme would be ideal but for the fact that our farming season straddles the fiscal year turnover. The farmers have it right on this; knowing the price in advance would likely guarantee production, as marketing points for sunflower are not nearly as ubiquitous as maize.

 2015 WHEAT PRODUCTION ESTIMATED AT OVER 300,000 TONS

The ZNFU wheat and barley commodity committee met on Thursday 12^th November 2015 to review the 2015 wheat production estimates. Based on information captured through satellite imagery, the total area under wheat in 2015 was 46,156 hectares out of which, 42,564Ha was observed to be normal, 1,916Ha had somewhat stressed/below average wheat while 1,675ha had stressed wheat. The total production has been estimated at 309,100 of wheat while the 2015 barley crop harvest has been pegged at 8,800tons. The farmers expressed concern on the high levels of uncommitted wheat crop still available in the farmers’ hands with little propensity by the millers to purchase the crop. The meeting was further informed that the estimated national wheat consumption requirement is 387,193MT. It was however highlighted that due to load shedding, indication from the millers was that while there have been some attempts to invest in alternative sources of power, their normal production levels had dropped by about 30%. It was further stated that demand for flour and flour products was being affected by the rising cost of living.

Just a note ... nearly all wheat is grown by a relative handful of very large scale farmers (inclusive of quite a number of white ex-Zimbabweans) under pivot irrigation. It's sown just after the rains and irrigated throughout the early part of the dry season, then matures and dries under the later, hotter part of the dry season; usually they combine it in early October. It still is the strangest thing to go from a farmer working with a hoe on a quarter hectare to a person operating a 50 foot combine through 250ha of wheat in the same day.

WATER SHORTAGE HITS COPPERBELT

Copperbelt like many other districts in the country has experienced low water levels ever recorded with most perennial streams and wells drying up. Farmers in the countryside have expressed worry over the water crisis as most of their livestock depend on streams and wells for their water. Farmers have to walk long distances to fetch for water.  Others have resorted to drive to nearby towns to draw water in drums for their livestock, and for domestic use. A Mr. Mwale of Mufulira Murundu farming area explained that for the first time, he has witnessed a perennial stream drying up. "This is very sad, my animals are dying, vegetables completely wilting" Mr Mwale lamented. 

Meanwhile, a group of farmers in Ndola have mobilised themselves and have requested the regional office to assist in finding a borehole driller and negotiate the prices so that they can have boreholes in their farms as a measure to mitigate the water crisis. And a named borehole driller has since been approached and negotiations are currently underway.

Good thing climate change is just a myth ... right? More like what my friend Rolf Shenton says; Zambia's capacity to absorb rain is being destroyed as forests fall to charcoal and farms.

KATETE DC DISSOLVES ERRING CAC COMMITTEE

The District Commissioner for Katete district has dissolved the Camp Agriculture Committee (CAC) for Chilembwe Agricultural Camp after discovering that the CAC committee and the Camp Extension Officer could not account for k 20,000.00 contribution made by Cooperatives and other farmers groups for CAC activities. The CAC committee could not also account for 138 packs of fertilizer under the Farmer Input Support Program (FISP) which were allocated to the agricultural camp. During the meeting held on 6^th November 2015 the area Councilor for Chimwi Ward appealed to the DC through the DACO to consider replacing the Camp Extension Officer.

Typical FISP ... usually it doesn't get reported.

E-VOUCHER CARDS DISTRIBUTION ON COURSE

The distribution of FISP e-voucher in Mumbwa district has so far gone well with over 75% of the cards already issued to beneficiary farmers. More than 12,000 cards have been issued to the beneficiaries against the intended 16,239 beneficiaries as the exercise continues.

As usual, behind schedule ... 

At the same meeting last week, I was somewhat surprised by the tacit, subtle resistance to the e-vouchers, which have been in play by FAO, CFU, hell, even Concern since 2007ish. It's a relatively simple thing ... you get a credit card sized voucher with a fixed value, take it to a participating agrodealer, and redeem inputs against the value of that card ... agrodealers get paid fairly quickly, and there's zero transport costs to the government (the farmers collect the voucher). However, standard FISP distribution is a powerful expression of gift-giving (go read My African Friends and Money Matters) that accrues repute to the giver. Power. That's the tall beer. I have it figured they want it to fail because it deprives them of that power.

However, the exercise has faced a minor challenge in one agriculture camp of the district where a few farmers could not collect their cards due to some unexplained religious conviction. The farmers who could not pick up the cards belong to Mpusu Agriculture Camp north of Mumbwa district.

Huh...

FARMERS’ REPRESENTATIVE CALLS FOR INTRODUCTION OF THE FISP E-CARD IN ALL DISTRICTS

Kabompo District Farmers' Association (DFA) chairman, George Munyingu, has called on government to extend the use of the FISP e-voucher card to other districts in the country. Speaking during the Kabompo DFA executive committee meeting on Wednesday this week, Mr. Munyingu said the use of the e-card will bring sanity in the implementation of the FISP exercise. He further added that the use of the e-card will eliminate a lot of discrepancies currently being experienced under the FISP program. He cited some farmer organizations which do not have proven membership but are receiving huge amounts of input packs thereby disadvantaging real farmer organisations.

Read that vs. the bit above. Farmers like it because they are more in control of when they get their inputs.

FISP BENEFICIARY FARMERS STILL WAITING FOR SEED INPUTS

All the districts in North Western B region have not received the allocated seed. A check at the storage sheds in various districts found warehouse managers still waiting to receive the seed. The affected districts are Chavuma, Kabompo, Manyinga and Zambezi.

Another reason to switch to e-cards ... waiting on other people sucks.

Remember the poor.