MATCHING GRANTS

HAPPY MULOLANI Small-scale farmers have often concentrated on crops and diversification as key in their agriculture practices. However, more recently, the emphasis has also embraced taking farming as a business in a quest to enhance entrepreneurship among smallholder farmers. The concept of farming as a business is more in the domain now with the Department of Marketing and Agribusiness under the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock (MAL) and other stakeholders taking centre-stage in propagating this concept. It is a fact that, a lot of trainings centred on entrepreneurship trainings have been imparted to farmers in order to increase their capacity to not only produce crops, but also enhance their business and marketing skills by engaging in other ventures that can support their farming enterprises. However, despite the numerous entrepreneur trainings that have been imparted to small-scale farmers, it has been a daunting task for them to access funds to enhance their entrepreneurial activities thus, making it very difficult to progress in their farming endeavours despite the knowledge acquired from these trainings. Most small-scale farmers have been encouraged to take farming as a business and to that effect, it is on record, the many intervention programmes that have also spearheaded this concept, such as the Economic Expansion in Outlying Areas (EE-OA), Agriculture Support Programme (ASP), Agricultural Sector Investment Programme (ASIP) and other intervention programmes, which have worked collaboratively with MAL in impacting business knowledge in smallholder farmers. What has been evident however, is that farmers need to get organised with a clear vision and work with organisations that can support their enterprises as long as they are clear about how they execute their generated business ideas. The more reason why this is important for farmers to derive ideas of viable enterprises and also be able to successfully own them. One such programme that has set-out to promote farmers business ventures is the smallholder Agribusiness Promotion Programme (SAPP). With a lifespan of seven years, SAPP’s mandate is to work with smallholder farmers that are organised and have viable business ventures that are progressive and sustainable. SAPP Programme Manager Kwibisa Lywalii points out that farmers are key in enhancing their business enterprises as they have ideas on what activities can boost their economic well-being and status in their respective farming communities. He reveals that the programme has a matching grant facility, which supports among other ventures, interventions in small-livestock, beef, cassava, beans, groundnuts, and beginning in 2015 also activities in aquaculture and rice. The programme promotes value addition and primarily supports activities with a strong market focus or orientation. The outlining factor for groups to qualify for the matching grant, is that they need to contribute 10per cent towards the overall cost of their enterprise. The core essence of them contributing towards their project, is to show commitment and also own their enterprises. ‘’When groups contribute towards their own projects, it ensures ownership and to some extent, sustainability even when the programme has phased out,’’ says Lywalii. He reveals that so far, SAPP is on record for having disbursed about K3, 000, 000, to farmer beneficiary groups countrywide under the matching grant facility in the various intervention categories noting that the response has been encouraging. With these available grants, awareness and capacity building in various beneficiary groups has heightened in a bid to promote self-sustainability and empowerment. And Livingstone District Cooperative Development Officer Benjamin Mvula is of the view that, there has been tremendous shift in terms of how farmers have been engaging in farming enterprises after awareness trainings on taking farming as a business and entrepreneurship. Mr. Mvula observes that the major hurdle for most smallholder farmers has been access to credit as most of them do not have title to their land to guarantee security resulting in them not being able to access finance and loans from banks and other lending institutions. He, however, believes with SAPP’s intervention, it has boosted farmer’s access to finance their enterprises with emphasis on their contribution because once farmers themselves contribute towards their own intiative, it shows commitment and the venture succeeds. One typical case in point, is Lubemba Cooperative Society of Mukuni agriculture camp in Livingstone, which has a membership of 25 and has now turned out to be a multi-purpose cooperative, as it has integrated livestock production as its main enterprise while also continuing with gardening, which has been its long standing activity. Lubemba Cooperative Chairperson Teddy Ncube disclosed that the matching grant has helped them to overcome their financial hurdles in setting up their goat breeding centre, where they are crossing exotic and local breeds to the farmer community in Mukuni agriculture camp in Livingstone. ‘’Initially, we were just engaged in gardening, we mainly grew vegetables, tomatoes and reared local chickens,’’ says Ncube. He explained that the group had tried to mobilise resources in order to embark on livestock production by rearing goats but did not have adequate resources. ‘’We later learnt about the matching grant facility, which we applied for and were considered when we submitted our proposal: after being funded K100, 000, we seriously invested in the goat breeding centre,’’ said Ncube. He further said the group has had some challenges with other farmers being in distant areas and this has compelled the group to earmark five centres within Mukuni camp while utilising the main breeding centre as a point of exchange for off springs to multiply their breeds in the various localities. ‘’We have a strategic goat breeding centre and have five different communities in this activity within the camp, were farmers are breeding goats. It is clear that there are various initiatives that farmers can easily succeed as long as they own their projects and remain focussed in their entrepreneurial activities. It is also encouraging to see how smallholder farmers have become more entrepreneurial focussed and less dependent on crops alone as this is a more sustainable way of engaging in agriculture. Therefore, smallholder farmers need to take a leaf from groups such as Lubembe Cooperative society to enhance their groups and strengthen their linkages with organisations that not only build capacity but are also able to finance such entrepreneurial activities that aim at contributing to uplift lives of smallholder farmers.