Ten years ago, in the small village of Khaoue in the Eastern Cape, SaveAct held its first vegetable production training session with small-scale farmers from the village. The purpose of the two-day event, in September 2014, was to teach the farmers, who were all in SaveAct savings groups (SG), how to increase their production using conservation agriculture, and share with them techniques for sustainable food gardens.
It was an important milestone in SaveAct’s journey. Before this training session, SaveAct’s involvement with SG members’ food production had mainly revolved around encouraging them to produce food to stabilise their households, using savings to do this.
But this was easier said than done. SaveAct had only started working with savings groups in 2005, and that was its main focus for several years. Its support for food production was fairly minimal. While maintaining a food garden is not unusual in rural areas, small-scale farmers were often severely challenged by a lack of water, good soil and knowledge. A report from the Khaoue area event stated that crops at the first site visited were “not in a good condition, due to exposure to extreme temperatures that are experienced in the area, and the lack of fertility in the soil. Intervention to assist the situation was significantly needed.”
IMPROVING FOOD SECURITY AND FARMING
At the course, the villagers learnt new techniques, including how to build trench beds and tower gardens. They also learnt about eco-friendly pest control, and from then on training continued, albeit sporadically and mostly in the Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal, where there were trainers. In the years that followed, SaveAct members were exposed to multiple training sessions covering a range of sustainability tools and practices. This included drip irrigation, learning about climate change and its impacts, water management, soil health, crop management, indigenous plants and green manure.
According to SaveAct Programme Manager, Nolufefe Nonjeke-Dlanjwa, the approach was low-impact from an environmental point of view. “We have always promoted less harmful environmental farming practices,” she says, adding that the majority of SaveAct’s farmers have focused on household food production, with the remainder doing that plus growing a surplus for sale. Farmers are involved in both crop and livestock production.
In terms of the amount of training provided, Mrs. Nonjeke-Dlanjwa says “The issue has been capacity to do that at scale and consistently. It has been a start/stop approach, subject to funding availability.” A lack of resources to conduct longer-term research has meant that data capturing around farming trends over the longer-term has been minimal, so it is hard to quantify what the impact of promoting food production has been.
CLIMATE CHANGE
And then there is climate change. SaveAct Executive Director Anton Krone says, “We are increasingly aware of the effects of more frequent climate shocks on farmers we work with. Floods and droughts have wiped out hard-won efforts, calling for new, more resilient methods.” He believes, however, that there is some cause for optimism. “Our overall experience has been one of green shoots in farming. With youth unemployment growing and now standing at 44% (The Economist, 4 May 2024), the context that young people face is quite different to that of their parents. We see a growing trend of youth remaining in rural areas and becoming active in farming.”
In 2022 and 2023 training in sustainable practices was ramped up as the WAYSE project funded by GIZ was implemented. Hundreds of savings group members attended a range of courses, including agri-enterprise development, general enterprise development and poultry management. The WAYSE training was well received and many participants have since reported better yields and healthier crops and livestock. “It was particularly pleasing to see the high level of interest in agroecology methods,” says Mr. Krone.
According to SG member Gcobani Qhina, “Our chickens were always dying, and nothing we did seemed to work, but when I came back from poultry training at Mtunzini (where trainer Siyazisiza Trust is based) and shared what I learned with my wife, we applied the knowledge and they all grew! Not one chicken has died since.”
In addition, there were reports of valuable farming information being shared enthusiastically in communities across savings groups and among farmers, which will undoubtedly have a strong multiplier effect. “Members were active in selling vegetables through the social and virtual networks, a good marker of a circular economy at work and improved access to nutritious food in places where malnutrition is an issue,” says Mr. Krone. These interventions have improved food security and livelihood outcomes for hundreds, if not thousands of people previously living a marginal life.
SAVING, AGROECOLOGY AND A JUST TRANSITION
In recent years SaveAct has aligned itself with agroecology, a global movement that has climate mitigation and changing food systems as two of its main pillars. Biowatch South Africa describes agroecology as “a holistic science, a practice, and a movement with a bottom-up approach to creating just, ecologically sustainable and viable food systems. Agroecology works in harmony with nature and ecosystems, and builds on local cultures with their unique expressions of knowledge and practice that have developed over millennia around the world.”
Mr. Krone says for the vast majority of rural poorer their main economic asset is their land. “With the stabilising effect of being in a savings group comes a sense of wellbeing and greater possibility. Members inspire each other, and they develop the confidence to take bold steps to make meaningful changes. The obvious path for most will be in growing nutritious food through recycling of their household and homestead waste into compost to improve the quality of their soils, and venture into household or collective farming. Members working together get to share the load and benefit from social interactions and the development of mutual support systems, and opportunities to express social and economic solidarity.”
For Sibongile Mntungwa, head of Women’s Leadership and Training programme (WLTP) and a SG member, savings, agroecology and climate change cannot be separated. “People are in agroecology because it is cheaper to farm in an agroecological way — you use what is there,” she says. This is what climate change adaptation promotes – to use what is in your surroundings. In the agroecological farming space, people aren’t farming for food only; they also think about what the agricultural inputs do to climate change. They understand that agroecology is a way to deal with climate change.”
Savings come in when people have to buy seeds, seedlings, fencing etc. They cannot achieve a successful garden if they don’t have these inputs. Mrs. Mntungwa says, “SaveAct is at a very opportune moment to teach us how to transition in a balanced way.” She believes that if the gains that are made in climate change adaptation don’t include financial stability for those who need it, it will be difficult for them to achieve it on their own.
“That’s why I think some communities, or people, don’t want to work on those climate strategies because they don’t think of it as their immediate need, (unlike) food and finances.” Mrs. Mntungwa says SaveAct is bringing the financial capital that people need, and this will create sustainable climate change strategies, going forward.
Mr. Krone says “SaveAct and its partners promoting savings circles are uniquely positioned to promote a just transition through the scaling of its stepwise methodology. Moving from stabilising household consumption into agroecology and the preservation of environmental assets is a natural progression.” SaveAct and its partners are in contact with thousands of savings groups. “With an average size of 18 to 20 members, and multiple savings groups forming in many villages, the opportunity of reaching many households with agroecology methods is so much easier,” he says.
“Participants take what they learn and advise each other through their strong social ties. Peer learning is stimulated. The result is the scaling of a vital practice needed to counter the serious nutrition deficiencies leading to both stunting and obesity.” Mr. Krone says “In a relatively wealthy country (the wealthiest in Africa) we have an obligation to eradicate these tragic consequences. We have to get together: the social and economic problem solvers, and the environmental actors, to increase our impact, soon and at scale. We cannot countenance another generation being similarly compromised in this way.”