First flood, then drought: climate-resilience project helps farmers thrive in Mozambique
Mozambican farmer Alima
Matusse is the head of a household of six and she used to worry that her
children would go without nutritious food because her small plot of land was
bone dry in the hot season and waterlogged when it rained.
Thanks to a
climate-resilience project providing irrigation and drainage in her home
province of Gaza, Matusse has been able to increase the area she cultivates
from a quarter to three quarters of a hectare and has added kale, cabbage,
carrots to her staple crop, maize.
In 2013, Gaza Province was
devastated by heavy floods, with almost 200,000 people uprooted from their
homes. Just three years later, Mozambique was struck by severe drought,
affecting nearly half a million people and leaving 400,000 people in need of
food assistance.
With the aim of bolstering
the resilience of farming communities to these recurrent climate shocks, the
African Development Bank-supported the Baixo Limpopo Irrigation and Climate
Resilience Project (BLICRP) implemented in Xai-Xai District of Gaza Province.
The extra income Matusse
has generated through the project has allowed her to save money through a
savings and credit association, build her house, pay for school fees and
purchase two goats with the aim of transitioning to cattle farming in the
future.
Since BLICRP was started
in 2013, she has noticed that many of her neighbours have returned home after
migrating to the capital Maputo or even South Africa in search of work. This
reverse migration was accelerated in the 2017/18 planting season, when more
than 400 farmers received intensive training in new technologies for rice
production.
Matusse’s ambition now is
for her children to go to university, and to construct a house of bricks so she
does not have to repair her reed house every year.
“The project gives an
opportunity to the unemployed youth to make a living through farming. This
project is our real dream,” she said.
The seven-year BLICRP
project provided around 9,000 smallholder farmers in Xai-Xai with
climate-resilient infrastructure, including two pumping stations to improve
drainage and irrigation, and a 52 kilometre drainage network servicing a total
area of 2,000 hectares. Nearly 48 km of rural roads were rehabilitated to a
climate-resilient design.
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With agreements to supply
the wholesale and retail markets in Maputo and sweet potatoes to the South
African market, CEPHOL has allowed local farmers to reach buyers way beyond
their usual markets.
Another beneficiary is
57-year-old farmer António Gaveta, who owns 10 hectares of land within the
BLICRP scheme area. A surge in his agricultural productivity has allowed this
proud father to invest $3,200 per year in the education of three of his six
children.
His daughter Aurora is
following in her father’s footsteps by studying agricultural economics, his son
Antonio is on a healthcare management course and his younger daughter Mira is
studying public administration.
According to Gaveta, “the
BLIRCP project has allowed me to move forward with my own project, which is
slightly different from that of the members of my community. In fact, I have
what I like to call an education project”.
Within the project area,
Agro Sumbunuca, a family-run company, opened to supply approximately 1,000
farmers with seeds, herbicides, equipment, animal feed and poultry chicks – the
first private-sector operation under the BLIRCP scheme.
The major challenge now
lies in attracting more private sector companies to engage with farmers and to
cement this “farm-to-fork” value chain success story.
Total funding for BLIRCP
was an estimated $44.08 million; $25.79 million was provided by a loan from
the Bank Group’s African Development Fund. The Strategic Climate Fund
extended $15.98 million in financing and the Government of Mozambique $2.31
million.
Source
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