By Emily Geminder
31 July 2008 [SOUTH-SOUTH VOICES]: A slow revolution is catching on along the banks of the Mbabala River in Zambia. It is led by women, and it is dependent neither on technological innovation nor large amounts of financial capital. At its core is faith in the resiliency of agriculture and the belief that, if allowed time and space to flourish, age-old farming techniques will sustain the community.
The Mbabala Women Farmers’ Cooperative Union unites roughly 2,000 women farmers in the cause for food: food security, sustainability, and self-reliance. Speaking from Zambia, the cooperative’s 23-year-old director Barbara Hachipuka told South-South Voices that women had always been at the heart of the movement. When her father ran for Parliament in 2001, as part of his campaign, Hachipuka’s mother traveled the Zambian countryside and was struck by the stark absence of women in development efforts.
“She noticed that women did not play a role in the development of their homes or of their country,” Hachipuka said. “Because a number of them were widows, because of AIDS and malaria, many of them were very poor and their children suffering. In rural communities, often women were not and, in some cases, are still not the focus of parents and the community. This is what has brought about low literacy levels and a lack of skills in women, which in turn has caused a major deficit in developing rural communities.”
Hachipuka’s mother founded the cooperative with the hope of advancing women’s financial independence. Initially, 1703 women signed on, each putting up 5,000 kwacha – about one U.S. dollar. The money went to hybrid seeds and bulk quantities of fertilizer.
Later that year, Hachipuka’s mother died in a car accident, and it was unclear if the cooperative would continue. But when its members visited and wrote to Hachipuka, asking her to help keep the cooperative alive, she began to feel a decision had already been made for her. “In a weird sort of way, you would say God and my mother’s spirit led me down the path of working with the women,” she said.
Hachipuka began to look for ways to decrease small-scale farmers’ dependency on expensive hybrid seeds and fertilizers. At a conference on the Millennium Development Goals held in Japan, she joined forces with the organization Shumei, which aims to educate farmers about natural agriculture techniques.
The Mbabala constituency now extends to eight cooperatives, each with ten democratically elected board members who assist with training and relaying information to its members. In total, over 2,000 women are part of Mbabala. Productivity has increased from 2.5 tons of maize per 10 hectares to up to 7.5 tons per 10 hectares. The women are working on establishing “demonstration farms” in neighboring countries to bring their message of natural agriculture to a broader community. Currently, they are creating initiatives to promote the use and saving of indigenous seeds, so that, in addition to increased yields, the women are no longer dependent on purchased seeds and fertilizers.
Shumei’s Director of International Affairs Alice Cunningham told South-South Voices that dependence on fertilizer is a modern construct. “After World War II, a lot of traditional farming methods were lost, as agriculture was expanded into large-scale mono-crops. It’s something of a myth that you have to use these modern fertilizers and technologies.”
The cooperative views the leading role of women across its ranks as a powerful message in its own right – one that has not always been readily accepted. Initially, many of the women’s husbands protested their participation, calling it a waste of time and money, even interrupting cooperative meetings. But as the women’s farms yielded continued success, the men began to reconsider. “Now we have the full support of the local leaders and organizations, the government’s community development officers, the youth, and even the husbands,” Hachipuka said. “In some cases, men even come to the meetings as representatives of their wives when they cannot come. That makes the women proud.”
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