Women farmers earn lots more beans in Zambia
Planting takes place on communal plots organized by women's clubs. The women usually spend one day a week nurturing their crops, then the rest of the week in their own fields tending the country's staple crop, maize.
"My family only gets meat once a month, usually chicken, so these cowpeas are a good idea for us. They're tasty in stew with meat or by themselves as a relish with maize," says Emma Mwansa, secretary of the Tubombe women's club, which now has 26 members.
Such clubs work alongside non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that distribute improved seed varieties and provide training. This is a key part of the FAO-assisted Integrated Crop Management/Food Legume Project, which operates across the country. The scheme aims to introduce drought-resistant legumes that also return nutrients to the soil and can grow vigorously without heaps of expensive fertilizer.
Legume crops are also ideally suited to the small-scale farming carried out by women like Mwansa. She and the others live on neat homesteads in the bush 50 km northwest of the small railroad town of Mpika. The only other protein for these women and their families comes from groundnuts or bambara nuts.
Overlooking the women's quarter-hectare field of cowpeas, which is scrupulously clean of weeds and flourishing, Mwansa says, "We should have enough cowpea for the whole year for our families, plus some for seed for next season to give back to the seed loan."
The seeds are distributed like this. Having bought seed from the project, NGOs lend it to individual farmers or farmers' groups. Five-kg bags are enough to sow a quarter of an hectare. The farmers then have to repay 10 kg of seed. The NGOs then pass the paid-back seed loan on to the next group of farmers.
Clubbing together: women farmers tend their crops
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Women lead the way planting legumes
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"We're trying to make them self-reliant," said Marleen Kramer, a coordinator of the NGO, Development Organization for People's Empowerment. "Once the club gets one lot of seed, they won't get the same type again. They have to succeed with the seed they hold back for themselves or which they trade with other clubs."
Women's clubs are hoping for good returns. Typically, it is hoped that the crop surplus will be around 270 kg, which can be consumed locally or sold on the market where there is strong demand.
Certainly down the track to the next village, farmers hope to make real money. "This soybean is much more profitable than other crops. The price is good and we don't have the expense of fertilizer," said Stephenia Chimfwembe, who heads the women's club in the village of Aluni.
"If we make a profit this year, we'll expand the fields and add groundnuts and beans. But we'll plant earlier to avoid the bird problem we had this time," she added.
Meanwhile, Mwansa and some 200 other women farmers in Tubombe had gathered under a grove of trees. They listened respectfully to the elderly chief talking farming and business, and then quizzed the project extension workers. "What do we do with the lazy members of our club?" one woman asked. "You remove them," came the answer.
"We want a plow so we can plant bigger areas," said another club member. "That's a complaint, not a question," snapped an extension worker. Hand-outs are ruled out, but that didn't stop the women from singing and dancing.
The Integrated Crop Management/Food Legume Project is funded by the UN Development Programme and the Zambian government with assistance from FAO.
