Last week I had the chance to travel around Mozambique with two Senate staff members who were interested in seeing how the U.S. Government is improving food security in the country. We visited the Nacololo community in Monapo District of Nampula Province in the northeast, where USAID partner Save the Children has been implementing a development food assistance program since 2008.
Called SANA, or ‘good health’ in the local language Emakwa, the program focuses on assisting rural communities with market-driven agriculture, community-managed nutrition, and disaster preparedness and management. USAID has actively integrated SANA activities with other U.S. Government-funded initiatives, such as Feed the Future and the USAID-funded program Strengthening Communities through Integrated Programming (SCIP), to address community development in a holistic manner.
Community members showed their store of seeds they were conserving for future use as part of the conservation agriculture activities of the program. Photo credit: Leonor Domingues, USAID
The Senate staff members saw firsthand farmers taking that next step towards advancing their farming businesses through the integration of SANA with Feed the Future, which aims to support Mozambique’s economic growth, in part by strengthening targeted agricultural value chains.
The cooperative Ossucana Limited of Nacololo was a good example of this integration. It was formed in February 2012 and has 15 individual members. The cooperative is funded by members from an existing association – initially established under the development food assistance program – who have transitioned from their association to form the cooperative.
This advancement from association to cooperative has been important in solidifying the gains farmers have made to make their farming more profitable. Feed the Future is building on development food assistance achievements, enabling farmers to make connections to buyers and commodity markets, growing their businesses and increasing their incomes for the long term. One cooperative, for example, is already selling its sesame to India through connections made to a sesame exporter. This effort will ensure sustainability of the gains farmers have made, and lead to long-term food security.
Leonor Domingues is Food Security and Disaster Response Advisor for USAID’s Mission in Mozambique. For seven years she has overseen the Title II development food assistance programs.
While I see the positive influences of delivering foreign aid to countries, I too see a tremendous potential for small-scale farmers to reduce food insecurity in the future. Aid can only last for so long, but by investing in development, knowledge, and technical training food insecure communities can continue supporting themselves. It then eliminates the need for foreign intervention and reduces the cost associated with countries depending on aid.
One of my favorite examples comes from a Food Resources Bank (FRB) program in Gamboula in the Central African Republic. FRB created co-ops of farmers and distributed a variety of an improved variety of peanuts, among other higher producing seeds. The co-ops were required to return the same amount of seeds that were given to them at the end of the growing season at a meeting of all the co-ops. This allowed new co-ops to be created annually, as well as an opportunity to share with farmers from other villages techniques of what worked and what did not.
A men’s co-op was given 4 basins of peanuts by FRB originally. At harvest time, the group ended up with almost 60 basins of peanuts. Instead of returning the required 4 that they had initially received, the group gave 6. They were then able to keep 7 basins for next season and sell the rest for profit.
The sharing of knowledge and of seeds among the farmers’ co-ops encourages the sustainability of the program. However, this type of success cannot come without intervening support— whether that is NGO’s, government policies, or international agencies. One must also consider that this sort of success story will not help the poorest of the poor. If we are building up small-scale farmers, we are assuming a very big thing; they have land to grow on. The poorest of the poor do not have property to speak of and therefore will have the biggest issues pulling themselves up out of poverty and creating a food secure community.
While I am encouraged to see an emphasis placed on small-scale farmers, I hope that it is not at the expense of the landless and that they are remembered as governments develop agricultural policies.
The sharing of knowledge among the co-ops encourages the sustainability of the program. However, this type of success cannot come without intervening support— whether that is NGO’s, government policies, or international agencies. One must also consider that this sort of success story will not help the poorest of the poor. The poorest of the poor do not have property to speak of and therefore will have the biggest issues pulling themselves up out of poverty and creating a food secure community