Sucre Ethique - Swaziland : Farmers turn against SWADE

The Swazi Observer - samedi 27 mars 2010

Lubombo farmers affiliated to the Swaziland Water and Agricultural Development Enterprise (SWADE) have accused the company of reneging in its promises thus forcing them out of business.

Our investigation team took time to visit the farmers in some of the seven chiefdoms, especially Madlenya, Ngcamphalala and through to Luvatsi.
They have raised a number of allegations against the public company such as refusing to remove graves from the fields yet initially it made an undertaking to do so. In one filed at Ngcamphalala alone, there are about 20 graves that need to be relocated. The farmers say SWADE was tasked with providing 70% of funding their farming projects while they source 30% from banks. They say the money from the banks cannot cover relocation of tombs because that is costly in that it involves traditional ceremonies and slaughtering of beasts and performing other costly rites such as entertaining ancestral mediums.
Farmers say SWADE officials are so ‘nagging’ they even follow the farmers when they go to withdraw money from the bank to pay salaries and wages.
Interest
Because of the nature of their concerns they contemplate calling on SWADE Board Chairman Walter Bennett for intervention because they believe he might recall the SWADE mandate to the interest of the Swazi farmer on Swazi Nation Land (SNL).
Another thorny issue is that of contractors whereby they also accuse SWADE of imposing same on them. They argue that they are the ones to pay the contractor and therefore must have the benefit of choosing the most cost effective. They made an example of one contractor they said had been doing jobs in the logging business had no experience in sugarcane farming.
“SWADE commissions its officials to meet the chairpersons of the farmers’ association and strike deals without the involvement of the members. They simply impose what they agreed and we have no say,” say one farmer near Maphobeni.
The farmers further complain that when it comes to shareholding the formula is dictated upon in total disregard of the fact that some families had more land which they cleared and developed over decades.
“As a result there are a lot of disagreements among members in the associations because members are not allowed to negotiate or claim what belongs to them,” says another.
The pregnant issues in the relations between the farmers and SWADE may be far reaching. They accuse the company of not having a development plan for the relocated families such as infrastructure services, especially portable water, schools, lighting, recreation, clinics and so on. One of the farmers says his wife went to fetch water from the irrigation canal and scooped used menstruation pads, to illustrate the magnitude of the problem.
They also say the sugar farming idea was imposed on them because some preferred to diversify and venture into other commercial crops.
Manoeuvring
“Now they are manoeuvring to remove the land from the chief’s control into leased land so that they can attach it in the event we default in payment of the loans. They also hire managers for us to control our businesses instead of equipping us with managerial skills. They are making business for their expensive managers. Most of us have been handling sugarcane for many years, working with Illovo but now they want to impose experts who will tell us how to grow sugarcane. This has been our lifeblood for decades,” says another dissenting farmer.
Among them they blame the newcomers in the sugarcane business of agreeing to anything SWADE was imposing on them but the older farmers are generally regarded as trouble makers, who are counter developmental.

SWADE responds

Strategy and Corporate Communications Manager Gugulethu Hlophe was asked to respond to some of the issues raised by the farmers and had this to say.
SWADE’s explicit mandate is to empower rural communities to acquire an improved quality of life and be able to sustain it. SWADE therefore embarks on a number of programmes to achieve this mandate, mainly through the commercialisation of agriculture.
We would like to respond to the issues raised by the farmers as follows :
As a way of facilitating the sustainable development of irrigated farm businesses on Swazi Nation Land, the government of Swaziland is assisting the smallholder farmers by providing grant finance as part of the National Adaptation Strategy in the sugar sector. The funds are sourced from the fiscus and grants from the European Union Accompanying Measures. The farmers being assisted get access to a fully functional irrigated farm. For a typical farm of 50ha, the grant component is around E3.2 million. This pays for the following : Land preparation, equipped pumphouse, irrigation equipment, fencing, access roads and some spares and tools.
Costs
The farmers are financing, through bank loans, the costs for crop establishment and maintenance costs for around approximately E 1 000 000 for a 50ha farm. These costs include ; seedcane, fertiliser, chemicals, labour and electricity. It is expected that farmers will finance the relocation of graves within their farming areas, as part of the development of their farm.
It is, therefore, the responsibility of SWADE, as a government institution, to ensure that the main objective of the government programme, of poverty alleviation, is achieved. SWADE monitors that vulnerable households are not marginalised. We work with the traditional authorities to achieve this objective.
For the sustainability of the new businesses, SWADE has an on-going programme for coaching and mentoring the new business owners.
The selection of planting contractors and input suppliers is done through an open tender system. The evaluation of the tenders is done by SWADE, farmers and Ubombo and observed by the financing institution.
Because SWADE is facilitating the commercialisation of agriculture on Swazi Nation Land, it is becoming more and more relevant to look at ways of strengthening security of tenure on Swazi Nation Land. Secure land tenure will not only attract investors to partner with the farmers in the face of increasing development costs, but will also ensure the confidence of financial institutions to borrow money to farmers on SNL. SWADE is, therefore, in discussion with the Traditional Authorities to look at possibilities of strengthening security tenure on SNL, for the benefit of the farmers and in turn, the benefit of the communities.