A New Dawn in Manica
The Manica Initiative provides innovative economic opportunities for farmers in Mozambique, connecting them to the training and resources they need to break out of a decades-long cycle of poverty.
The central provinces of Mozambique are some of the poorest regions in the world - more than 70 percent of the population lives in poverty. Civil war, floods, and disease keep thousands of people trapped in destitution, with few opportunities for growth. Until recently, the bulk of governmental and NGO relief efforts were concentrated in the north and south of the country, with little aid reaching central Mozambicans. A group of local organizations saw an opportunity to help the people of the Manica Province, in central Mozambique, by connecting impoverished farmers and private investors in a mutually beneficial relationship.
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| Elias Timosi receives business training from Oxfam partner, CARITAS, in the Manica Province, Mozambique. By: Heather Robinson/Oxfam America |
Emerging from the Ashes - A Fragile Economy
In 1992, Mozambique emerged from a 16-year civil war a ruined country. An estimated one million Mozambicans died during the conflict, and one third of the country’s population fled their homes as refugees. Once fertile fields were littered with land mines, and the prized agricultural sector had crashed. The government forged a fragile peace agreement with the opposition party, and explored every option to repair a devastated economy, turning first to their greatest source of wealth - land.
Mozambique is the largest, most accessible region of fertile land in southern Africa. With nearly 60 million uncultivated acres, it is a hotspot for enterprising investors.
All land in Mozambique is property of the state. Farming families only own temporary use rights—rights that were challenged when the governments decided to lease large tracts of this land to an eager pool of private investors. Hundreds of farming families, without official certificates of land ownership, were driven off the land their families had occupied for generations.
The New Land Law
In 1997 the Mozambican government approved a new Land Law, containing a milestone provision for the rural poor. It protects their land rights by waiving the requirement for an official land title. It is now sufficient for landowners to prove their claim by means of a local oral confirmation, such as the testimony of a traditional chief. In a land where 68 percent of adults are illiterate, the legitimizing of verbal evidence in the court of law is vital to the economic survival of thousands of impoverished families.
Yet even with a secure claim to their land, farmers still needed to revive their economy. A second clause in the land requires individuals and companies seeking to acquire land for commercial interests first hold consultations with local communities. Communities now have a right to share in the benefits that their land and resources yield, giving them protected access to a burgeoning market, and a promising road out of poverty.
The Manica Initiative
The Manica Initiative introduced an innovative model of community development to rural Mozambique, capitalizing on the highly evolved maize market in the province. The project encourages the growth of the local economy by creating interdependent local markets.
In one community, private investors are financing a chicken feed processing plant, purchasing maize, soya, and sunflowers (the main ingredients in chicken feed) from local farmers. The processed chicken feed is bought by a local chicken incubation and breeding factory, which produces thousands of chickens to be raised by community-operated cooperatives. A large percentage of these chickens are in turn sold to a community-based abattoir, which sells the processed chickens to urban areas in the province.
The "chicken chain" has created a thriving local economy, providing supply, demand, and the tools and resources to make this system self-sustainable for the long-run.
Technical training workshops teach farmers about crop diversification, new irrigation technologies, and proper storage techniques. These new skills and technologies increase their yield and income, allowing them to reinvest in new enterprises.
The Manica Initiative is also organizing peasant farmers into associations that enable the rural farming community to present a unified and effective political voice. Representatives from the association manage the poultry production cycle, and maintain the equitable and efficient management of the process at every stage.
On yet another level, the Manica Initiative is empowering women by setting up functional literacy and vocational training workshops, allowing women to participate in negotiations with private investors and understand their constitutional rights under the new land law.
"Kwaedza Simukai" is Shora for "It is dawn, time to get up." This name, chosen by one of our partner groups in Manica, evokes the unprecedented hope and energy felt by many who look forward to a new chapter of economic opportunity and stability.