sum of a few weeks.

so I am here in bed getting rest because I understand that this is the best remedy for malaria. well I better make good use of it, so get ready for a long blog post.
so I have been working for about a week know with IDE here in Kitwe. So far it has been a blast, I have meet some incredible farmers who have done really well for themselves thanks to IDE and their own hard work. Examples of this are Mr. Chunda (who you can see pulling water from a well using a yellow bucket in the photos below) who has lived at the farm for more than 19 years. He moved to this farm in 1990 when he quit his job as a mechanic in town. Along with his wife and kids ( I don't know how many had then but he has 15 with the same from wife spanning from 1983 to 2006....what a woman) they moved to this farm to grow maize and live a different life. Since he has moved he has suffered a day and has always been fortunate to have enough food for his family and enough money to send his kids through school (he is doing pretty well right now, the photo with him and 6 kids along with a lady in white was taken in the school house he build. The lady is a teacher who visits to teach the children everyday). Mr. Chunda has been involved with IDE since they started in Kitwe about 10 months ago, he has taken part in the sugar beans project which worked really well since sugar beans can be planted along side maize without any additional inputs or stresses. Harvest for these beans was about a month ago and all the beans should be sent out to the buyer in the next few weeks. Mr. Chunda figures that he will be able to buy a treadle pump (imagine a treadle-mill that pumped water as you exercised) that will be able to bring up that water from the well (goodbye yellow bucket!!!) thus giving him more time to do other things around the farm (I can already see the 16th child on the way...). Next year he plans to do the sugar bean project again and maybe he will gain enough profit to buy a drip irrigation system (think of the hoses we use around our houses that have holes in them and they mist out water, there is your drip irrigation system!!).
But let me tell you, this sugar bean project is not all awesome. There have been some struggles.First off, price negotiations have been hell. The farmers were promises a price back when they got the seeds from the distributor (which was pretty dumb, I don't see how you can promise a price for a product in a market 9 months from now...bad business...) but now that the market has changed (cough cough global recession...fluctuation in the American dollar...falling copper prices) the farmers are getting less than they were promised. Although they are still getting a good amount of money (most will make profit) it is the principle of an agreement here. There have been worries of some farmers selling their products to other markets to try and gain a better price but I have heard no further news on this. Another major factor was the planting date. When planting a crop it is important to understand how much water it needs to grow...not enough and your crop wont grow...too much and it will spoil (that is the gist of it..there is more details but I will leave that for you to look up). This year was much wetter than predicted, IDE was informing farmers to plant at a certain time but thankfully they did not listen and planted later. All this is tied to global warming and climate change, it is important to realise that as it gets hotter in some places other places will get wetter and although more water is good sometimes, like anything else too much of something is bad.
Hmmm...what else can I talk to you about.Ah. Why not IDE.Chyea.
Ok so IDE's big project in Zambia right now is called the Rural Prosperity Initiative (I might have called it poverty before...I was wrong...my bad) and it has 6 main focuses.
1)Irrigation - the supply and training of irrigation practices and equipment. It is important to understand that when you seel something like a pump to a rural farmer they must be able to understand it, fix it/know where to get it fixed and buy components for it. A supply chain is incredibly valuable. Imagine if you bought a new car but you could never get it fixed in your town and would have to drive it 6 hours away to get it fixed (hahah my dad has told me this story a million times about buying a German car....why would I buy a car that I would have to get fixed in Toronto...you taught me so much...never knew it would apply to irrigation..I bet you did not either)
2)Credit - MONEY!!!! another way to say it is an access to money. In Canada we can get a loan for anything from anyone (pretty much). Dosen't work like that here. Many people struggle to start something up here because they cant get the cash (although they might have every other resource available). One reason (a big deal in South Downs, a village which I visited on my second day...photos to come...stories too) for loan denial is the lack of collateral....oh but tony, they have land they can back against....wrong!!!!! In these places most farmers do not own the land they live on, the government does. Some farmers that I spoke to explained to me that their major barrier to great success (all our versions of success are different, for these guys it was to move from only growing maize, vegs...ect to herding cattle and animals too) was the lack of the ability to invest. The banks would not allow them a loan because they did not hold the title deed to the land they have been living on (although most of the farmers have lived on it their whole life). So IDE works with farmers to give them a better understanding of credit systems in order to open bank accounts, create farming budgets, understand input costs and profit margins (glad I took intro micro econ).
3)Access to inputs - Inputs...sweet sweet inputs. This includes everything that goes into growing your crop such as seeds, fertiliser, pesticides (not all organic here but the movement is growing...what are your opinions on org vs non org) etc....IDE works with farmers to work them up with distributors as well as help those who are interested to become their own input dealer to work with the community and the big shot while gaining a commission for their work.
4)Gender - Dude. We are all the same! Ok but how does this really work on the farm and in rural villages. IDE provides training sessions with farming groups to help better understand different roles in the farming household and community. They do so by group presentation and workshops where the farmers will work together to see how much time each gender spends performing certain tasks around the house and farm. They will assess the accessibility to capital, land, education, tools and demonstrate where (if there are any) things can be changed to make the living situation more efficient. They also stress the importance of understanding that development must occur in both genders, there have been instances where farms have been doing well and thought to been developing until the male of the house passes on and the wife is left with no knowledge of any practices. This is pretty shitty, they are emphasising the importance of everyone. I can saw from the one training session I have been to it was awesome. Everyone was involved and people seem really stoked on what they were learning (everyone spoke in bemba so I was lost).
5)Capacity Building - This one is all about building the capacity of the farmers in the field. Unfortunately this is the one training session I am least familiar with so the details I can provide are minimal with respect to IDE in specific. I realise that I just turned the words around on my first sentence but I do not want to say some things that are not true. You could see that all of these sessions as capacity builders, I do know that there are training sessions for capacity building in general but I lack the definition. When I get more exposure I will talk about it, until then think of capacity building as expanding your possibilities to be able to do. Sorry.
6)Marketing - Ah marketing. Ok so this is where I am focusing so I should know alot. I hope so. Marketing with respect to IDE's work is about connections between the farmers and the buyers (and everything in between). From growing the crop, to understanding what is to be grown (the supply and demand of the market...for example, if many farmers were to grow only tomatoes and sell to one market only the price would be low because the market would only be selling tomatoes and bargaining would occur resulting in the farmer achieving a low price. If farmers could better understand what is in the market and when they could diversify their crops and have lower quantities of different crops while getting higher prices...instead of joe, sue and mark all selling tomatoes; joe could sell tomatoes, sue could sell cucumbers and mark apples...ok this is really generic but if think you get the idea...also the important of who can grow what and who knows how to grow what comes into play....things can get complicated...but thats makes life here interesting and rather challenging), understanding of supplying the market over time and not all at once (do not grow all your crops at one but rather stagger them so you can a constant supply again reducing flooding...this is not always the case...it would depending on the situation at hand but it is a practices technique that is taught to farmers), finding transportation links between the farmer and the market because the roads here are not what they are like in Canada. the roads here are a serious barrier for farming, you could live 20km from the market but it could take you the whole day because the roads are so bad and your bike (or truck..if you are fortunate enough) must really take its time. Helping to find reliable and cost effective links between farmers and transport important. Other aspects include finding new markets for farmers to sell to, strengthening bonds between current markets, creating access to important information that farmers can use (current prices from surrounding markets, various costs of transport, seasonal trends in market supply and demand)..the list goes on. I hope this paints a small picture of marketing for rural farmers.

My job with IDEMarket Linkages
I am to work with the Kitwe team to help develop their market linkages section of the program. So far things are going a little slow, I am trying to get a hold of how the office works and what the current market situation is. Over the next few months I would like to make a positive impact for the office so that market linkages work better for the farmers and the team. I am still gathering information about rural farming, challenges faced from day to day and what is needed. One major wall I am facing is getting to understand what the current situation is because although the team is highly effective (from what I can tell, they are half way to their goal of 3500 farmers reached in 3 years after only 10months) but they lack the physical information that can be transmitted (no market info anywhere...from what I can tell...I might have to dig deeper). So right now I am about to start a sit down process with each of the members to understand the following:-What are the current struggles that farmers are having with markets-If the office was not so overwhelmed, where would the marketing section be at?-What do marketing results look like (in your eyes) for farmers? for IDE?-What are some long term goals with respect to market linkages.
So that about it for everything I have been doing up to date. I hope to get all these interviews done this week in between irrigation training sessions but this malaria has slow me down. I am getting stressed because I am realising how little time I have here and how many other things are going on. But I will stay positive and keep moving...I am learning so much. I hope you are too.
Upcoming things here for me.-next week I will be staying in South Downs for a week to see what harvesting is like. From moving the cabbage from the farm to the market, I am pretty stoked.-From the 17th to the 23rd or so I will be in transit then in Malawi and then back form the JF retreat where we will all meet up and organdie our action plans for impact-Sometime in July there will be a IDE training session for the whole country. Some 35+ will be in attendance.-Our office might be traveling to Livingstone to see how the IDE office works their and the connection with the infamous Sun Hotel.
Until next time.


Much love