The Mabote visit. (Many, many years back in the history of agriculture)
Last visit 08 October to 16 October 2017.
Mozambique, Inhambane Province, Mabote District
AgriServi has visited the area of Mabote at 3 different occasions up to now and we have spent almost 3 weeks in total, studying the circumstances and the people of the area. What an exciting area!
I need to start with one of the stories. We always motivate the people to tell us about something bad that have happened to them and then also something good that have unexpectedly happened to them. However, the most information we get when they tell us any “never forget “story.
We were sitting with a man in his late forties who told us about his last conversation with his grandfather, before the grand father died. He and 6 of his cousins were called by the grandfather to hear what he wants to tell them. He was like this one or other prophet who told them that their lives are going to change dramatically. He told them that they will not be able to gather food from the “Bush” anymore and that the men will not be able to live from hunting, but that they will actually have to start working very hard. They will have to cut trees and start to open up some land where they can plant some crops and to have tamed animals. They have not ever been out of the area and did not know that the term “farming “even exists. For them it was the first message of something that was going to come in the future, and that was only between 1980 and 1985. During that times a lot people already stayed in the town of Mabote, but the bush areas were only used for hunting and to gather food. Only in, more or less, 1985, people really started moving to the bush areas to start farming there.
This story changed completely the way and the attitude with which I was looking at the standard of their farming enterprises. I could suddenly be happy with them for each “new” thing that happened in their lives, although it is things that I was thinking to exist since the beginning of the world.
All the good stories and the bad stories and the “never forget” stories were handled around the rainfall for each year. Many years they were surviving mostly of some food from trees and even the bark of certain trees. Some people would get sick when they only ate bark and some children would even die. The years from November 1999 until the end of 2000 were good years. After that they had an average year in 2007, but a very, very good year in 2009. After that they had an average year in 2014 and then November 2016 their lives started to change. It was an extremely good year and they had lots of food in 2017 until now. Many people talk about the old live and the new live, where everything before November 2016 is referred to as the old live and after that the new live. They will tell you that they are very happy and if you ask them why, they would show towards the children and ask if you do not think they look nice and fat. They have got food and that makes you happy. When I look at the children there is not any one that can be described as fat, but they are not thin and hungry. If I look at the “houses “ where they stay and the water buckets on their heads , the hard work they are doing and the simple food they are eating , I could have used that to motivate people to help them out of their misery, and definitely not to demonstrate happiness . For them, rain brings food, and food brings happiness and that is life.
I first decided to concentrate on the storage of maize and sorghum as a way to protect them against the droughts that come so often. I realized that they were using ways of storage that might have been familiar to our great-great grandparents, but for them it was this fantastic new invention, and I must agree that even for me it felt like too amazing to be true. They use different systems for maize that they will use within the first year after harvest and then other systems from which they could use the maize even for up to 5 years. Sorghum can be stored for 10 years or more. The most special storage systems are for the protection of seed, because if a good year only comes in the next 4 or 5 years, you need to have seed to plant when it starts raining.
On the first picture is seed that is stored for planting later. On the second picture is the maize that is stored for using after harvest and up to one year later. Here they just try to keep the maize dry, but insect infestation would damage it too much if you try to keep for longer than a year.
Smaller quantities of maize are hanged higher for better protection .It is also covered with some extra leaves. This maize could even be used for seed after 1 year. The maize in the second picture is for bulk storage, but also only for up to 1 year. The pits are not removed from the cob. Many people, especially newer farmers, only use this way to store their maize. The maize in this second picture can provide food for a family of 10 for up to 4 months.
When you need to protect your maize or sorghum or beans for very long periods, you need these types of facilities. These 2 silo`s are well plastered with strong clay and the structures are lifted from the ground. On top it will also first be plastered and then covered with a thatched roof. They make a hole into the plaster every year to inspect the condition of the seed. After inspection it will just be plastered again. The seed for next plantings will normally stored in this way, but as a food in can be saved like this for up to 10 years.
I also learned that they would plant sorghum every year on the first of November. Sorghum seed can survive under the soil for a month or more and if the rain comes, it will still germinate and then they do not waste time and can only concentrate on planting maize, which you can only plant after rain. If it does not rain at all, also the sorghum seed will be dead, therefore you need to keep enough seed to plant for maybe 3 or 4 years without getting any crop. The risk when planting maize is the same. They plant after the first rain, but it happens very often that no rain would come again for that season.
Raquine Mashava – only 87 years old – is busy to prepare her sorghum for further use. Her husband, José, died a few years ago, but she continues to look after the 13 dependants in her house. She had 12 children of which 2 have died as babies. Her one daughter died when she gave birth to her first child. Also the husband of that child died, but the baby stayed alive and lives with her grand-mother. When it started raining in November 2016, one of her children who work in South-Africa sends some money for her to hire some people to help her to plant. That made her very happy and she had a very good crop that can provide food until the end of 2017. If she would get a lot of money, she would solve the water problem and then drag all the people by their ears to go de-bushing every day. She owns 3 cattle, 30 chickens, 10 goats, 60 cashew nut trees and 1 mango tree. She told us about the old days when there were no people in the area, especially no old people. Now there are lots of old people and all people are happy. She is a beautiful person.
My argument have been that they do have good years and that we must just find a way where they could just plant more and when they have got a good year then , they must just have more storage facilities to get the good crop to pull them through the bad years .
I was eventually helped right by one old man. He asked me to explain life to him. He wanted to know what I think life is about. I started with all my normal words of having a happy family and to have a job and to find fulfillment in what you are doing everyday. He agreed, but changed it to “A family (see it in their terms) must have something to do that makes them happy, and then the whole world is happy. He asked me to help them to find that happiness. They haven’t got it, because they need to go out to their “Mashambane “every day. Not to go and find food, but to find life. When there is no rain and they cannot do anything in their “Mashambane “they also have no life. I think that more than 90 % of the people that we ask what makes them happy, would answer that it makes them happy to go and work in their Mashambane. The Mashambane is the shopping mall, the cinema, the eating in a restaurant or the holiday at the coast. Rain means happiness because you can work in your Mashambane. Working in the Mashambane means you are going to have food and make sure that you would not be unhappy because you are hungry or you cannot provide for your children.
I realized that this people needs more than only food, they need life in the way they described it to me. We will have to concentrate on pulling them through dry periods, but we will also have to work on a way in which they can enjoy their Mashambane`s every day.
The first picture on the bottom line shows the normal life at each house. Everything happens outside and more or less the same articles will be found at each house. They also make vegetable gardens when there is water nearby. In these gardens they also produce the seed for the next plantings. The availability of any fresh seed is very poor .The second picture in top row shows some rain water that dammed up in this area after the good rains in November 2016. The last picture shows a women walking to her field “Mashambane “.
We always give the people the change to dream. We ask them what they would do for their area in terms of agriculture if they would suddenly get as much money as they want to do a certain project. One hundred percent of the people in the Mabote area answered that they would get help to de-bush enough land to have a Mashambane for each person. After that they would buy a lot of oxen and ox ploughs to help to prepare the planting areas and only then they would get more boreholes for a stable water supply. Not even one of the more than 100 farmers that we have talked to up to now, whished for a modern tractor to come and work their lands. Maybe it is because it does not exist in the reference framework, or maybe it is only because the tractors will come and take away their lives, as they have described it to me.
The ox plough is one of the most sought after items in all remote areas. A dream would be to have 2 of them and then 5 good oxen. Two oxen for each plough and 1 extra ox for if one of the others gets sick. They would normally only work from 04H00 in the morning until 09H00 with the oxen. A team of 2 people handle the oxen and an amount of USD 20 is normally charged to plough 1 hectare. The second picture show an ox trailer, the trailer is used to carry seed to the field or to carry water for other animals.
We started to promote semi-commercial farming in the area a few weeks ago. We suggested that we work towards a system where it will be possible to register each farmers land on his name. We asked them to try and organize themselves into groups of 4 people who farm near each other. This will allow us to help them at a later stage to get a borehole and some tanks in the middle of each 4 farms. We also try then to get each farmer to have at least 3 to 4 hectare of open land for agriculture on their farm. The rest of the areas will stay communal area for all people to use as grazing area for cattle, until a later stage when it will become possible to also register this land. The people of the Mabote area (Malokka 2) identified 8 groups of four each. We started to measure the land and do the profiles of the first 5 groups (20 people). The needs of all the people questioned were almost the same. The number one priority is de-bushing. They have all cleaned big areas, but by hand it is not possible to clean good enough to even allow them to plough with oxen. However, de-bushing with a machine like a TLB will be able to do enough, although not all trees will be taken out.
The second priority will be to help them to buy 5 oxen and 2 ploughs for each group. This will enable them to plant a lot more and even to de-bush more in other areas. It might still be necessary to rip the soil with a bigger implement every few years, but the majority of work will be done by the oxen. This is a system that is more sustainable than any other system for the semi-commercial farmer in the remote areas. They also do not have the general management skills to mange implements like tractors. This will surely come in a few years after the capacity of the farmers have been build to the required level.
The third priority will be the fencing of their farms. There are cattle and other animals around and it is possible that it can ruin a total crop. Lots of material is available in the area to assist with fencing. Some small contributions will be needed in the form of steel wire. This will be more of a community project and will only need some expertise to help with the planning and management.
The fourth priority will be to solve the water problem. A bore hole will be needed for each group of 4 farmers, with a 5000 liter water tank and some pipes and valves. Water will allow them to plant earlier and to minimize the risk of crop failure when there is no rain. A well prepared planting hole that is watered well before planting can take up to 6 corn plants. The planting density that the people of the Mabote area use at present is around 10 000 seed per hectare. This means that around 25 planting holes will be in a 100 m row and 67 rows in a hectare. There will thus be 1675 planting holes to give water. This will take a family team of 2 only 2 days to water 1 hectare of maize with a drag line when it becomes seriously dry. One liter of water in each hole will be more than adequate to give the extra support to the 6 plants in the hole. With a 5000 liter tank that is full, more than 2 hectare of maize, or other crop can be watered regularly. The water would also be adequate to allow them to plant some vegetables and even some extra food for animals. We will need a solar pump system on the bore hole then to supply an average of 20 00 liter per day or 3000 liter per hour.
AgriServi will continue their work in the Mabote area and believe that some money will come to help this farmers .