Photo: Mujahid Safodien/IRIN Siteki — Faced with increasingly unpredictable rains and soaring agricultural input costs, many of Swaziland's smallholder farmers are no longer able to make a living relying on traditional methods to grow maize, the staple crop.
Donor-funded schemes to subsidize the cost of seed and fertilizer have dried up and a Ministry of Agriculture service to provide affordable tractor hire has been a casualty of the government's cash flow problems.
"I don't have enough money to hire a tractor so I have to use a hand hoe to plant and I can't afford fertilizer either," said Josephina Mnisi, a farmer from the village of Shewula in Swaziland's northeastern Lubombo region. "It affects my yield. Now I'm having to buy food to feed my family."
The small plot of land allocated to Mnisi's family by the local chief has to support a large household, including eight grandchildren (four of them orphans), Mnisi's husband, who is unemployed, and his second wife. With no surplus of maize to sell, Mnisi could not afford to pay the fees for her 16-year-old daughter to attend school this year.
Mnisi's neighbour, Lomacala Maliba is faring a little better. Her willingness to experiment with growing other crops besides maize, including sweet potato, cassava, peanuts and beans has earned her the designation of "Champion Farmer" and four free bags of fertilizer through a joint programme run by the Ministry of Agriculture and the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
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