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Rolihlahla Agriculture

Microfinance Project Ltd

(RAMP LTD)

REPORT ON THE FANRPAN HIGH-LEVEL FOOD

SECURITY PARTNERS’ MEETING

HELD ON THURSDAY, 29 MAY 2014, IN

CENTURION, PRETORIA, RSA

THEME: RETOOLING AFRICAN FAMILY

FARMING FOR CLIMATE SMART AGRICULTURE

AND POST-HARVEST LOSS REDUCTION

Celebrating Africa Day and enhancing strategic partnerships for collective action

Mr Noah Ben Adam, COO, RAMP LTD (left) Dr Lindiwe Majele

Sibanda, CEO, FANRPAN (middle), and Mr Jeremie Muamba, CEO,

RAMP LTD (right)

The last week of May 2014 had been marked by

intense celebration by the peoples of Africa of the

51st anniversary of the continent’s unity, with the

D-Day being the 25th of May. The week was

crowned in South Africa by the FANRPAN High-

Level Food Security Partnerships’ Meeting, held on

Thursday, 29 May 2014 with the theme Retooling African Family Farming for Climate Smart Agriculture and Post-harvest Loss Reduction. The

Rolihlahla Agriculture Microfinance Project Ltd

(RAMP LTD) was invited to the meeting as a

prospective partner of FANRPAN. Indeed, RAMP

LTD’s profile matches the meeting’s

abovementioned theme. It powers the family

farming by making poor families the main

beneficiaries of its pre-loan social development

package, and of its consecutive agribusiness-

oriented loan schemes. Besides, it promotes a

climate-smart agriculture, working to fulfil its

following goals: eradicating poverty in Africa,

becoming itself a force to be reckoned with in the

development bank sector, and significantly

contributing to the return to a pollution-free

global environment.

This development meeting took place in the

context of the United Nations’ proclamation of

2014 as the International Year of Family Farming,

the sharpening of the global issue of climate

change, and the timely imperative of celebrating

Africa Day and enhancing strategic partnerships

for collective action toward a continent-wide

development. Thence, in its capacity as one of the

world’s top think-tanks conceiving policies for a

food secure Africa, and bringing this global

context down to Africa’s realities, FANRPAN

organised the meeting with two concepts—

African family farming and climate smart

agriculture—as its focal points. These concepts

were addressed in four manners: panel discussion;

theatre for policy advocacy; positing issues,

policies, frameworks and recommendations for

climate smart agriculture & post-harvest

management; and opportunities for linkages and

synergies (partnering).

First, the panel discussion regarded the results of

FANRPAN-sponsored research on the situation of

family farming in South Africa (precisely in the

provinces of Limpopo and Eastern Cape) and its

position vis-à-vis climate change. The research has

made inter alia the following findings:

(1) Out of the households identified in sampled

wards as farmers (2.494 in Limpopo and 1446 in

Eastern Cape), only a very small percentage is

well-off, resilient to shocks (3% in Limpopo and

5% in Eastern Cape), whereas the very large

portion is moderate, i.e. surviving but on the edge

of falling to shocks (74% in Limpopo and 85% in

Eastern Cape), and the rest is completely deprived,

depending on humanitarian assistance, and

vulnerable to shocks (23% in Limpopo and 10% in

Eastern Cape);

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(2) Above results show that most of farming

households need funding and social protection,

while, because the setting is tough for farming,

many people are content with social grants for

their livelihood;

(3) A regular delivering of weather information is

crucial to responsible behaviours and decision

making by smallholder farmers; however, while

research in climate is facilitated by the availability

of good data from the South African Weather

Services, there is a need of reliable data on local

weather, and this requires regular governmental

funding of the expert work on local level;

furthermore, increasing of temperature is certain

in the future, still there is no confidence about the

future of rainfall;

(4) The major determinants of vulnerability of

family farming are the geographic location (i.e.

some localities are more drought-prone than

others), gender (female-headed households are

more vulnerable than male-headed ones), and

ownership of an ox, which leads to a more

yielding agriculture; and

(5) The adaptation strategies include irrigation

(especially for staples such as sorghum and

maize), water conservation, and soil fertilizing.

Second, the theatre for policy advocacy, performed

by young students from the University of

Swaziland, spelled out the reality of climate

change in Africa as a consequence of polluting

habits such as vehicle circulation, cow defecating,

deforestation for domestic cooking, etc.; and the

intervention of NGOs to provide farmers with

adaptation solutions such as drought-resistant

seeds, vaccine for livestock and poultry, funding,

and access to domestic and international free

trade. It ended up with a damning observation:

“Smallholder farmers contribute the least to the

climate change, yet they are the most vulnerable

[to its shocks]”. To correct this reality, the actors

spread a message consisting of 8 resolutions

running as follows:

Address and streamline climate change in

national agendas, planning and

harmonising formulations of climate

smart policies within and across the

departments;

Agricultural extension officers should be

sensitised to and be trained in climate

change issues;

There should be no blanket approach to

service delivery; we need targeted

responses to communities which are

dealing with climate change issues;

Hold households to be assessed and

selected using reliable tools such as

household vulnerability index and

interventions that should be responsive to

the specific needs;

Complement more small holder farmers’

indigenous knowledge to meet scientific

knowledge for climate smart agriculture;

Research funding organisations in South

Africa need to have a research ground

thrust dedicated to climate smart

agriculture;

The national meteorology department

should provide simplified versions of

seasonal weather forecasts to be

broadcast for farmers; and

There is a need to integrate climate smart

agriculture into school curriculum and

turning programmes at all levels.

Third, the lecture on climate smart agriculture & post-harvest management is highlighted in the

FANRPAN-sponsored study conducted by Dr

Phineas Khazamula Chauke (University of Venda)

and titled Analyses of Existing Institutional Arrangements and the Policy Environment for

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Managing Risk for Crop Production and Post-harvest Handling in Climate. The study shows the

determination of the South African government

and other role players within the country to tackle

the climate change issue for a climate-smart,

sustainably productive farming. For instance, the

Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries

(DAFF), through its Directorate Climate Change

and Disaster Management, has charted climate

change mitigation strategies that are “multifaceted

but focus mainly on awareness campaigns,

research and climate negotiation at the UFCCC

[United Nations Framework Convention on

Climate Change] level” (p. 20). Besides, to confirm

the effectiveness of this resolution, the study

reveals that, regarding the total production of

maize and wheat in the planted area in successive

decades from 1970 to 2010, there is an increase in

production due to the fact that “farmers have

developed strategies to mitigate the effect of

climate change as the [40 year] period was

affected by a number of disasters” (p.23). Lastly, it

reports that the South African National Climate

Change Responsive Policy has outlined very useful

intervention strategies “for mitigation against

climate change, and thus to

improve crop production” (p. 43),

such as the use of the

National GHG [greenhouse

gas] Trajectory Range, an in-

depth assessment of all

mitigation potential,

adoption of a flexible and

least cost carbon budget

approach for companies in

relevant sectors, and a pricing of

carbon and provision of economic

incentives.

Fourth and last, the culminating moment was the opportunities given to partners for linkages and

synergies. In other words, time was given to

RAMP LTD to tell the partners what it is, its

mandate and approach, and the nature of

partnership it contemplates to foster with

FANRPAN. Indeed, the three-minute presentation

by Noah Ben Adam, RAMP LTD COO, gave the

partners the occasion to know RAMP LTD as a

climate-smart agribusiness development

microfinance institution that has a social and

economic mandate. Socially, through the awarding

of small loans, it enables the poor to take control

of their lives through entrepreneurship and to

meet basic needs. Economically, it plays the triple

role of custody, midwifery and husbandry of the

small agribusiness community. Moreover, its

socioeconomic mandate is undertaken through the

combination of two successful microfinance

approaches: the credit awarding approach,

initiated by the Grameen Bank, and the “credit

plus” approach, bred by the Bangladesh Rural

Advancement Committee. Lastly, RAMP LTD

expects a mutually enriching partnership with

FANRPAN, eyeing the latter’s contribution in

terms of technical assistance in training clients in

agro-ecology, and in instructing the staff to find a

right niche for the MFI in a highly competitive,

fluctuating international economy.

JEREMIE MUAMBA DINKOLOBO

CEO, Rolihlahla Agriculture Microfinance

Project Ltd (RAMP LTD)

Cell Phone: +27 767 140 416

Fax: +27 866 636 624

E-mail: jmuamba@rampltd.co.za

Website: www.rampltd.co.za