Small Farm 1 - Monze
The Impact of Drought on Poverty
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The village of Monze has been very badly affected by the regularly occurring droughts of the 1980s and 1990s.
Droughts have occurred in the following years: 1982, 1983, 1984, 1992, 1994, 1995, 1998, 2000, 2001, 2002 and 2003.
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Maize is particularly susceptible to dry conditions. Droughts reduce or destroy the maize crop. The resulting poverty has forced the families in the village to look for new ways of subsisting. There have been two essential strategies. Firstly switching from the traditional maize growing to producing crops that have a shorter growing cycle such as beans and cowpeas, or are more drought-resistant food crops, such as sorghum, cassava and bulrush millet. Secondly switching from subsistence agriculture to the production of cash crops such as cotton which are then sold and the proceeds spent on maize and other necessities.
Ironically, World Food Programme deliveries of food aid in times of drought artificially cut the food prices paid to commercial farmers. Zambia also banned genetically modified food, saying it would rather go hungry than risk losing its export markets in Europe because its crops had been contaminated with GM seed.
The movement to producing cash crops such as cotton, a more labour intensive crop, means that more labour is needed for picking. Only families with children have been able to make this adjustment. Children are becoming a crucial source of labour. This increasing need to rely on child labour is having a major impact on the life of the village.
Traditionally when a couple is divorced the husband has paid a sum of money to the wife who takes the children to her family. With the decision to produce cash crops and the need for labour, husbands are contesting women having custody of the children.
In addition fertility is becoming a marketable commodity with young unmarried women recognising that they can earn some form of financial payment for bearing children for men. One of the effects of this is to raise the status of young women in the community as they
- Are seen as adults
- Have some financial control over the income earned
- Have some negotiating power
However when the family is experiencing severe poverty they sometimes resort to more desperate methods of earning income. Traditionally when a man and woman are married the man must pay a lobola or a bride price to the family of the bride. Families of young girls will marry off their daughters, often at ages of 10 and 11, to men who have an income and can afford lobola. Consider how desperate a mother must be if the only way they can survive is by marrying off their girl children, the majority of whom will continue to live in extreme poverty. It is estimated that 350,000 girl children in Zambia live below the poverty line.
It is also interesting to consider that 20 years ago this phenomenon was unheard of as money did not play such an important part of life in rural Zambia. The movement from subsistence agriculture to production cash crop and the money economy has its costs as well as its benefits.
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Related Glossary Items:
Cash Crops
Subsistence Farming
Theories and Discussion:
Measuring Poverty
Poverty and the cycles of poverty
