...But Give a Man a Fishing Rod
Our former Operations Manager and now volunteer, Liam McLaughlin caught up with Kenneth Mwakasungula on the challenges of being a Kilombero Rice farmer
For over 15 years True Origin (formerly known as Just Trading Scotland) has been working with Malawian rice farmers to provide an international market for their Fairly Traded Kilomero rice. Throughout that time, the farmers have had to deal with a myriad of problems including the floods and droughts that have come with climate change as well as the particular problems that the Covid pandemic has had on one of the poorest countries in the world.
After all these years and despite the fortitude of the farmers, it could be easy to question if the effort has been worth it. Despite the success in creating an overseas market giving much needed income, would it be best to put our hands up and say that this effort is unsustainable and that the farmers need to consider alternatives? Are there any actual long-term benefits for the community? Has climate change made the environment unsustainable for the farmers?
The only people who can answer this are the farmers themselves. With this in mind, I spoke to one of our rice farmers - Kenneth Mwakasungula. Kenneth is a smallholder farmer married to Getrude Mwenifumbo. Kenneth and Gertrude have 5 children and 4 grandchildren. Kenneth belongs to the royal family of the Mwakasungula of the Ngonde tribe where he is seen as an adviser in their community. This led to Kenneth becoming a representative of the local farmers association KASFA and from there on to the national farmers association, NASFAM.
I first met Kenneth when he came to Scotland to represent NASFAM. At the time I was the Warehouse Manager at True Origin and was given the task of collecting Kenneth from Glasgow airport. Kenneth was amazed by the technology that we take for granted. He’d seen an electric hob but had never known of a gas one. A dishwasher was a concept that had never occurred to him. He was keen to take a shot of my petrol lawn mower - and I was keen to let him! But this ignorance of western consumer technology was not an ignorance of mind. He was an impressive man and it soon became clear that Kenneth’s thirst for knowledge and his inquisitiveness made him an ideal choice for his task. He was also very popular with the groups that he met in Scotland, particularly the school children.
Kenneth joined KASFA in 2001 when they were promoting Kilombero rice production to local farmers and guaranteeing them a fair price for their rice. Local vendors were known to use unscrupulous practices such as unfair scales and offering low prices to farmers who had no other option but to accept them. Kenneth explained, “Despite government farm gate prices offered yearly, KASFA is always offering more than what the government is setting. Like this year, the minimum farmgate price for rice was K650 per kg but KASFA was buying at K900 per kg.” But KASFA is more than just a price guarantor. It offers training in modern agriculture techniques, e.g. improving seed yield as well as accounting and management courses for its members
This has been a great benefit to the farmers but as Kenneth tells me climate change has made it even more challenging. “Generally, the weather is quite different these days. If I compare now with the weather in the late 70s, then it was very stable. People could cultivate freely without any doubt of rain shortage. Or the rain could come in December and keep falling up to the end of April. But these days, rain starts anyhow. It can start in December and fall for only two days. It can also start in January and fall for only a week. It can have a dry spell of a month. In this situation, rain-fed farming faces a lot of challenges these days.”
This is one of the reasons that KASFA has promoted Kilombero rice. Kilombero can withstand dry spells much better than other varieties of rice. Thus KASFA’s farsighted view on the issues of climate change has helped mitigate some of its effects.
Kenneth believes that KASFAs help has been invaluable to him and helped his family prosper by growing Kilombero. Their farm management techniques and Kenneth’s own resourcefulness has also helped him to find other ways to overcome the impacts of climate change. In 2006, after another year of drought, Kenneth hired local workers to drill a soak well for him. He bought a petrol water pump to access the well which allowed him to grow vegetables in the winter months. This proved to be successful and he realised that he could access enough water to grow a small winter crop of rice along with the vegetables.
Mindful of the environmental impact of petrol, and in discussions between NASFAM, True Origin and their partners, Kenneth was able to take part in a pilot scheme to use solar pumps (“Future Pumps”). Unfortunately, it was found that the pumps were not strong enough for large scale production. Kenneth says “Yes, I remember to have received that pump called Future pump and I also remember to have sent that recommendation that they were really suited for a home garden as they could only irrigate an area of 10 x 10 metres/day”. But Kenneth was not put off by this and his research found that stronger solar pumps were available which could greatly increase his irrigation. “The 3 inch solar pump which I am using nowadays irrigates an area of an acre and plus per day.”
But solar pumps are expensive and many farmers cannot afford them. Kenneth’s 3” version costs 8,200,000MWK (~ £3,600) which is a lot for a Malawian smallholder farmer. He needed to take out a loan from the bank to buy one but by the end of the 2nd year had paid this loan off. The solar pump has been transformational for him. “I think I have reduced the climate change effect in my house because I don't rely on rain with my farming. During the rainy season my shallow well becomes my backup while in winter it is my major water source for rice irrigation farming.” What this has meant is that Kenneth can grow a 2nd crop of rice each year and from a higher yielding variety.
“There are many varieties of rice being grown in Karonga and many other parts in Malawi. Apart from Kilombero which is long term maturing and long grain we also have short term varieties such as Difa, Cherwa, Nelika4, Daudi and Nanyondo.
Now, the short term varieties are mainly grown in rice schemes during the winter period. So, I got the seed from the farmers who grow in the rice schemes. I now grow Kilombero during the rainy season while Nanyondo is grown during the winter period.
Therefore, in terms of periods of maturity and yield of the long term and short term varieties, they differ a lot. Kilombero takes 5 months to mature while short term varieties take 3 months to mature. As for the yield; in an area where one does harvest 150 kgs of Kilombero, you harvest 300 kgs of short term variety. In short, short term varieties are higher yielding than long term varieties. This means that short term varieties can give one a lot more money than long term varieties.”
KASFA has recognised the value of pumps and some diesel pumps have been sent to them. I asked Kenneth the difference between diesel and solar pumps: “As for the diesel pumps which KASFA asked from True Origin Partnerhips, they are cheap and very good as backups during the rainy season. However, they are expensive because of the use of fuel which one is subject to buy now and again. And in Malawi, we have fuel shortage problems most of the time. So fuel becomes more expensive. Furthermore, the fuel pumps need maintenance now and again. In this case, people long for solar pumps . When the solar pump is switched on at 8 am with its full sunshine, you just wait to close it at 4 pm.” True Origin Partnerships has recognised this and is planning to provide KASFA with money to buy solar powered pumps.
I asked Kenneth if KASFA were able to buy this other rice as well as his Kilombero: “The market is not guaranteed. KASFA does not have enough working capital. The money that KASFA used to buy our rice is just borrowed from banks. Like this year KASFA has bought rice from very few farmers. Most of the rice has been sold to vendors. Why? Last year KASFA borrowed a lot from banks and a lot of rice. This rice is not yet finished and the loan also is not yet finished.”
Despite this, Kenneth has been able to make a success of his winter crop and has plans to buy more land to expand his farming activity: “I want to purchase between 5 to 10 hectares of land. However, last year I bought an acre of land for buildings and other related things. I would like to plant bananas or cocoa or palm oil trees, raise livestock like chickens, ducks, guinea fowls, pigs etc.”.
With all this extra work I asked Kenneth if he would manage by himself or would he need help?
“The workload will determine. But I will start with temporary or piece workers.”
If things work out the way Kenneth is planning, not only will he be providing for himself and his family but also providing much needed work for others in the community.
Kenneth shows that with good stewardship, farmers can, not only cope with, but in some cases overcome the problems of climate change. But what of the community as a whole? Have they also seen improvements? Kenneth believes that there is a huge improvement in the community.
“There is great change in the community. Most people build iron sheet houses nowadays rather than grass houses. Urbanisation is growing. People long to go and stay in towns rather than rural areas.
Farming..people like to go for short term rice varieties because they are fast maturing and high yielding. There are more Cooperatives..people are now shifting to joint effort business activities.”
Below is a short WhatsApp video Keneth sent in Feb 25 to Liam showing him the crop he will harvest in March 25.
“Climate change still remains a big challenge for farm activities. Rain is unpredictable these days. Furthermore , there are a lot of dry spells, floods or over-rain. All this retards farming.”
There are other general problems which the farmers have to overcome. Devaluation of the Malawi Kwacha causes price increases in commodities. There are also fuel shortages. “Those with money take advantage of buying in bulk and later sell on to others at a higher price.”
A market to sell the rice into is also problematic. Although NASFAM has helped farmers greatly, Kenneth tells me “Because NASFAM has inadequate capital, most rice goes to vendors at a cheap price.”
There are obviously still huge problems for the community to overcome. However, it is clear that fairly traded practices and providing an international market have helped farmers like Kenneth to achieve long term benefits to the community. It takes hard work and a positive attitude which Kenneth obviously has. As he says; “It is each day I wake up, I think of having a new life or improving myself.”
“If you'd like to make a donation to True Origin Partnerships’ fund to provide solar pumps for KASFA, please contact True Origin via our website. Get in touch with the team at True Origin so that bank and gift aid details can be provided." Thanks for reading.
