Introduction
Can the poor participate in markets? This is a question that is often raised. Yes they can is my answer. As a development practitioner working with development projects that target the poorest of the poor for several years now I have witnessed phenomenal changes in the way that the poor engage with markets. In developing countries particularly in Sub –Saharan Africa the poor should necessarily participate in markets in order to have access to their basic needs. Access to food is normally met through own production at farmer level in rural Zambia. However, in order to acquire income for non-farm products and services farm households have to either sell some of their produce or barter them for goods and services that they need.
Rights Based Programming
In 2005, I was part of the team that developed a food security programme for an international Non-governmental Organisation (NGO) focusing on increasing food security among marginalised food insecure rights holders particularly female headed households, women of child bearing age, children under the age of five, People Living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA) and the elderly in Zambia. The programme was developed using a rights based approach problem analysis in partnership with local Zambian NGOs working in the agricultural sector and other sectors relevant to food security. The main intervention strategies included awareness raising on the right to food, promoting sustainable agricultural practices and organising rights holders in groups for the purpose of improving their access to services and voice in advocating for institutional support from duty bearers. The programme also advocated against structural barriers to food security in Zambia such as policies on land which did not support secure land tenure for marginalised rural communities that depended on land for livelihood. This programme was mainly implemented in Eastern and Southern Provinces and some parts of Lusaka and Central Provinces.
Interventions
The programme was implemented in the period 2006-2010. Some of the key projects implemented by local Zambian organisations focused on providing inputs for sustainable agriculture (especially organic agriculture and conservation farming) creating community based extension systems, creating awareness on rights particularly the right to productive resources especially land. Gender and HIV/AIDS were mainstreamed in all these interventions. Most of the targeted beneficiaries were living on the margins without enough food. One project implemented in Chipata district was focusing mainly on improving livelihood and food security among 2500 food insecure households through community based crop and livestock extension system, promoting income generation through gardening and fruit production and food production through conservation farming, agro-forestry, erosion control and water conservation (contour rigging), creation and registration of groups and cooperatives and creating market linkages for small producers. At inception this project looked over-ambitious. The project was implemented in the period 2006-2008 (phase 1) and 2009-2011 (phase 2) and 2012 (extension phase). 2500 households were targeted in the first phase and 3000 households in the second phase in 13 agricultural camps in Chipata districts. Both phases were targeting the same communities and households with the second phase expanding the target group by 500.
Empowering the poor through sustainable and organic agriculture
At inception, it was a great challenge for the poor to believe that it was possible for them to get out of the poverty trap and be able to produce adequate food for the household needs and excess for the market. Therefore the project management focused a lot on awareness raising on the benefits of producing food cheaply through use of locally available sources of nutrients rather than depending on external inputs such as synthetic chemical fertilisers which were beyond the rich of poor households. The withdrawal of the government from provision of subsided inputs during this period assisted in the causes to rely on cheaper animal and green manure for adding nutrients to the soil. In addition creation of interest groups on contour rigging, conservation farming (pot holing) assisted in removing barriers associated with high labour requirements for the land preparation work that would have deterred labour constrained households e.g. female headed households and PLWHA. Further the project implementation strategy was based on a community based extension system relying on volunteers that were trained in all aspects of agricultural technologies promoted in the project i.e. Community Agricultural Workers (CAW) to push the agenda on crop production and Community Livestock Auxiliaries (CLA) to push the agenda on livestock rearing.
Targeted beneficiaries created various interest groups on various components of the project e.g. agro-forestry (focusing on planting and distribution of fertility plants), contour rigging (involving in making contour rigging in farmer field with the aim of reducing soil erosion through run off), cassava (focusing on crop diversification through growing and processing cassava), conservation farming (focusing on land preparation through digging ‘pot hole’ or planting stations that retain moisture and nutrients on a permanent planting space in the field), gardening (focusing on cultivation of various crops in wetland or ‘dambos’), goat rearing (focusing on construction of raised goat-structures to reduce animal diseases and collect dropping for use for compost making) and fish farming (focusing on supply of fish fingerlings and supply of fish on the local market).
Conclusion
Employing the various techniques promoted in the project resulted in food insecure households increasing their agricultural productivity and food availability at household levels. In addition, the targeted beneficiaries were able to produce excess for the market especially in the second phase of the project. Facilitating access to inputs and providing knowledge on sustainable agriculture was the key to improving productivity at farmer level. The project also facilitated group organisation which was instrumental in providing the structure for delivery of training as well as sustainability of the community based extension system. Provision of market information in form of a quarterly bulletin played a key role in enabling the targeted household to have a good basis of setting their selling prices and also to take goods to the markets where profitable prices were quoted for their products. Today, most targeted households in this project are food secure and are actively engaging with the market. Many belong to registered groups or cooperatives that are leveraging returns from participating in local markets through bulking their produce and engaging in micro-and medium small scale enterprises at village level. The successes in this project emphasise the importance of facilitating participation of the poor in social economic development through creating an environment in which they can produce cheaply and also organise themselves in community based structures that build their confidence to participate in main stream markets.
