When rural households build their skills as producers and entrepreneurs, household income and food security benefit.
"Farming is not just my job, it is my passion," says Mzwandile Mamba, a participant in the IFAD-supported Rural Finance and Enterprise Development Programme (RFEDP), while proudly showing his 11 beehives. He is a young farmer and lives with his mother and five younger sisters in the Shiselweni region of southern Swaziland.
Swaziland is ranked as a low middle-income country; however, income distribution is significantly unequal. Between the 1960s and the 1990s, the country enjoyed an expanding economy. However, in recent years, Swaziland has experienced a declining trend in human development and social welfare, largely due to prolonged periods of drought and the worsening of the HIV/AIDS pandemic. These factors have left many orphans and households headed by elderly women, grandparents or children. At present, according to UNDP Human Development Indicators, around 79 per cent of the population lives in rural areas, where poverty is widespread and severe. Rural households can only rely on subsistence agriculture and self-employment due to the high unemployment rate in the country and stiff competition from the educated urban workforce.
Operating nationwide, RFEDP aims to expand rural household opportunities. Begun in 2010, it provides training to develop new farming and off-farm skills and entrepreneurial abilities among rural poor people. The objective is to help rural households achieve food security and move from subsistence agriculture to income-generating work. The unique feature of the programme is that it is implemented through a broad network of partnerships, linked together by the government's Microfinance Unit, under the Ministry of Finance.
New opportunities for the most vulnerable
Mamba started honey production two years ago. He saw somebody doing it in his community and he became interested. "I was very excited when I learned about the opportunity offered by RFEDP to get formal training," he says. Some 4,600 households are directly benefiting from the programme. While off-farm training in making handicrafts is at a very initial stage, bee-keeping for honey production and village poultry-raising are two key activities already underway and widely supported by the programme.
"The advantage of these activities is that they are not too labour intensive nor very costly to run and, therefore, can be easily performed by women, elderly persons and AIDS-affected household members," explains Brenda Ndzinisa, a programme staff member.
With the help of local administrative institutions, the programme mobilizes communities to take part in the scheduled activities. Those farmers who express interest in the programme participate in formal group training courses, for example on how to build resistant beehives. Extension workers of the Ministry of Agriculture or employees of local companies contracted by the programme facilitate the training sessions. The programme works in partnership with universities to develop and introduce curricula to train extension workers.
Helping rural entrepreneurs get started
Starting up a new business is a challenge for rural producers.
"When you are self-employed you need to purchase all the inputs and the materials to build the bee traps," says Mamba. The equipment needed includes the beehives (or the wood and nails to build them), protective wear, boots, gloves, hats with protective netting, and a smoker to keep the bees quiet during harvesting. "But once you get started, it is a self-sustaining activity," continues Mamba.
To help farmers get started with bee-keeping, in addition to extension services, the programme provides each household one training toolkit, comprising wood, water resistant-paint, nails and other tools. During one training course, Mamba learned how to build a lighter beehive. The advantage is that it can be easily moved and placed according to the season in those areas with a greater abundance of fruit trees. As Mamba explains, it is better if the bees do not need to travel too far to get nectar to produce the honey.
After receiving training in the various courses offered under the programme, farmers are ready to start practicing what they have learned. First, they need to fulfil their family's nutritional needs. They are also encouraged to report any surpluses being produced. Farmers with surpluses can be linked to the Small Enterprises Development Company, a government-supported partner of the programme. This company further trains farmers in entrepreneurial and marketing skills, such as record keeping, and provides legal advice on how to register a company and apply for a business license. Also, some local microfinance institutions that are partnering with the programme provide loans to emerging rural entrepreneurs. Two of these institutions are the Inhlanyelo Fund and Imbita Swaziland Women's Finance Trust, nongovernmental organizations that provide financial services to underserved constituencies and communities. However, access to banking services still remains very difficult in rural areas as financial institutions are mainly located in urban centres.
"To address this challenge, RFEDP builds upon its partners' existing capacities," explains David M. Myeni, Micro Finance Unit National Programme Director. "To enhance access to financial services for the rural un-banked population, the programme, together with MTN Swaziland [the national mobile telecommunications company], is piloting e-technology innovative solutions," adds Kevin C. Thring, Micro Finance Unit Programme Manager. Through the Imbita Swaziland Women's Finance Trust, the pilot institution of the MTN Mobile Money facility, rural members of Imbita are able to save, make loan repayments and receive loan payments without having to travel to cities. Mobile Money is a sort of virtual bank account that allows MTN customers to send and receive money through their mobile phones, wherever they are. Withdrawing cash, however, is a more problematic issue.
"This facility has a huge potential in the country if we consider that the MTN network counts already more than 800,000 subscribers, out of a country population of around 1.2 million," says Thring. At present, this system relies on local shops and MTN officers who physically travel to rural areas carrying large amounts of money for the financial transactions of MTN subscribers. This method raises safety concerns and liquidity constraints. With the support of the programme and the Micro Finance Unit, MTN is implementing an enhanced mobile money system which will use self-service kiosks placed in rural areas where access is difficult. This system aims to remove liquidity challenges and the need for travel by MTN officers. From these self-service kiosks rural people will be able to access electronic financial services, take out cash as needed, make purchases and send money.
Linking rural producers to markets
At present, Mamba sells his honey to individuals from neighbouring communities. RFEDP is working to establish linkages between rural bee-keepers trained in its courses and local honey processing facilities. One of them is the Eswatini Swazi Kitchen factory in the Manzini region, where unprocessed honey produced by farmers is boiled in order to extract the honey, and the residue is used to make wax for candles and other products. This factory currently receives honey from 400 farmers and produces around 28-30 tons per year. However, to meet the current demand, the factory estimates it would need to produce 18 tons per month. With the support of the programme, the factory aims to scale up operations by increasing the number of rural honey suppliers. This is an important market opportunity for the bee-keepers trained by the programme.
As Mamba takes us around his small farm, he expresses his love for animals and explains how he takes care of them. In addition to his new bee-keeping business, this young farmer raises and sells chickens. Recently, a local restaurant approached him about buying his chickens. At present, Mamba sees poultry-raising as a hobby, but he is enthusiastic about the emerging opportunity for poultry farming. He is now willing to work to enlarge his stock and eventually make poultry-raising another of his self-sustaining businesses. He is determined to enhance his entrepreneurial skills and to meet buyers' demand on a regular basis.
Before leaving the farm, Mamba offers us the last pot of his delicious honey from the previous harvest. He invites us to come back soon to visit his farm so he can show us his progress--he tells us that in less than five years he will increase the number of his beehives to at least 10 columns and 6 rows of traps. RFEDP is helping to make his dreams a reality.