ESWATINI CAN BE SELF-SUFFICIENT IN BEAN PRODUCTION

Madam,

The acute shortage of beans in Eswatini which forces retailers to import from overseas suppliers has the negative effect of pushing up the consumer price. I believe the country has not done enough to ensure self-sufficient in bean production.

From my personal experience, the following factors are at play:
1. Limited access to funding.

2. Limited access to fundable land. Fundable land is preferably title-deed land with a nearby running river or huge dam (borehole is not bankable), and well fenced. We can even probe the Silulu Royal Holdings and find out the hurdles are in accessing that land. It is very difficult to get this kind of land in Eswatini. I know a couple of aspiring farmers who have vented their frustrations in getting leases from landowners. Some cancel lease contracts willy-nilly, and others simply refuse, and even insult potential farmers for asking to lease their unused land. Essentially, potential farmers lack land, and many landowners are more interested in other pursuits.

3. Getting profitable contracts. With beans, the entities most likely to provide contracts are NMC and World Vision. NMC’s contracts are not enticing, they offer very little benefit to the farmer, yet you can’t get funding without a confirmed market. Their input programme is also limited by a lack of funding. In my humble opinion, parastatals such as Eswatini Dairy Board,NAMBoard and NMC exist to increase employment by employing people themselves, rather than making an impact on increasing agricultural production through increasing the quality and quantity of farming entities.

4. Limited technical expertise. While the government has a lot of agricultural field officers (balimisi) littered all over the country, it has failed to understand that farming is a business. Growing crops is easier than planning and managing a profitable crop-farming enterprise.  There is a lot involved in farming beyond just planting seeds, and watching them grow.
These are not insurmountable challenges, they just require backup from the government and a clear strategy. If these findings can be presented to the institutions that donate food, and global bodies like the FAO, we can receive funding that can help to mitigate them. Beyond the government, I would like to see Swazi farmers get together and consider forming a Farmers’ Association, similar to Malawi’s NASFAM (https://www.nasfam.org/) where they can leverage their collective numbers to help them break these barriers.

The Swaziland Sugar Association is a good example to follow and the association may be willing to assist Food Crop farmers in setting up a similar association as it does not compete with theirs, at least not directly. Individual entities like RES may even lease them their land, as was done in the 2019 project. However, this needs a visionary leader or group of visionary leaders in high positions, who can negotiate and use their influence to empower emaSwati. The Ministry of Agriculture should be doing this.If Eswatini produces so much sugar that 95 per cent of it is exported, do you genuinely believe that we need to be importing 97 per cent of the beans we consume? Sugar is a much more intensive crop to produce. There is no secret to success in any endeavor, all success is a result of planning, persistence, trial and failure, mentorship, all the things that we have access to but do not leverage because we simply lack the will to do so.

Mandlenkhosi Sithole

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