Background

Mrs Caritas Dube is wife to Mr Aramu Dube, a former head of Mudzongwe Primary school in Ward 23 of Chisina. Aramu came to the Chisina area of Gokwe South, Zimbabwe in 1969 as a school teacher. In 1972 he married Caritas and decided to settle in the area. He started building his homestead there and embarked on farming – growing cotton, maize and groundnuts for many years. He stopped growing cotton in 2009 because of sub-economic prices caused by the collapse of international commodity markets. The discontinuation of cotton left the family with maize and groundnuts which they could not sell at viable prices. The failure of the state marketing authority – the Grain Marketing Board (GMB) – to pay timeously, caused a crisis for most farmers.

“The decision to stop growing cotton was very difficult for us seeing that we had grown the crop since the 70’s. Cotton income supplemented my teaching salary, enabling us to send our children to good schools and develop our homestead. Without cotton, we remained only with maize and groundnuts for which the only market was the GMB. We could not count on GMB income in our budgeting because they would pay us very late, disrupting our plans for the following seasons,” recalled Aramu.

“My husband subsequently reached retirement age and left teaching. This meant that we would have to rely on farming for our livelihood. It was fortunate that our children had finished school, otherwise we would have struggled financially. We however still needed something to help us in our retirement.”

While still searching for an alternative livelihood, Caritas attended a field day at Mr Mthombeni’s homestead in Ganyungu in 2015. The field day was sponsored and organised by the SIMBA programme. This event was an eye-opener.

“Although I am typically a proactive member of the community, I had shunned the SIMBA programme because of its insistence on Conservation Agriculture (CA). Digging of planting stations was too labour-intensive and was associated with poor people who have no draught power. We called it ‘dhigaufe’ which is literally translated as ‘dig and die’. We were also not interested in learning new things because we had been successful farmers for years and my husband was a retired teacher,” said Caritas.

The new things I learnt at the field day have changed our lives forever, giving us new hope. We now have a new zeal to learn and try out new things. It is indeed a good feeling for old people like us. Besides new knowledge, SIMBA introduced us to new cash crops such as chilli and sesame. We will never look back,” said Caritas, smiling.

Opportunity

At the field day Caritas heard about the market linkage work being done by SIMBA. She heard that the programme was introducing several crops with contracted markets and technical extension support, working with farmers practicing CA. The African Bird’s Eye Chilli (ABE) and sesame were some of the new cash crops. Chilli is contracted by Better Agriculture (BA) who supply Nando’s, an international fast food and chilli sauce manufacturer. Sesame, on the other hand, is contracted by IETC, a Harare-based commodity trader.

“My husband kept one perennial chilli bush in front of our kitchen which often looked neglected and only flowered in summer. He would pick the ripe pods around April, dry them and forget about the plant until the following rainy season. He never watered, applied manure or sprayed insecticides on it. It was therefore difficult to see how such a crop could be turned commercial,” recalled Caritas The Chisina area in 2014 Caritas had taken no interest in it. She was not sure how a crop she had seen growing randomly in people’s backyards could be turned into a viable cash crop. Sesame, on the other hand, was a completely new crop which she thought she was too old to learn about.

There were also some myths and handling chilli. Some people said it could cause tuberculosis (TB) because it often caused one to cough when handling it. Because of the close connection between TB and HIV/AIDS, it was said that chilli quickened the onset of AIDS. Others said that continuous exposure to chilli causes blindness because it irritates the eyes.

“We feared developing TB at our age, given that it’s a stigmatized ailment in rural areas like Chisina. The risk of going blind was also a threat to us. So we adopted a wait-and-see attitude until we were sure,” said Caritas.

Asked about sesame, she said, “My husband’s attitude was that there was nothing new he could be taught, having been a teacher for most of his life. I also adopted the same attitude for most of my life. It’s therefore not surprising that I shunned sesame because it was a completely new crop which required me to learn new things. Again, my experience at the Mthombeni field day, organized by SIMBA, ignited my desire to adopt and learn new ideas.”

Caritas’ experience at the field day helped her to shrug off her initial doubts, and she embarked on chilli and sesame production in 2015. She quickly struck a good working relationship with BA and IETC extension and supporting SIMBA staff. Experienced chilli farmers were also an important source of knowledge. Since 2014, the number of farmers growing chilli in the Chisina area has increased substantially, however there is a limit to the number of farmers that BA can contract due to the annual quotas imposed by Nando’s.

The Dube’s & their newly installed Borehole 

Profitability Analysis

Gross income

At the start of the 2017 marketing season BA was purchasing chilli at a price of $2.85/kg for dried A-grade. The price was subsequently increased to $3.00/kg. The situation in Gokwe South is unique because the company allows farmers to value-add by drying their freshly harvested chilli.  Elsewhere BA buys wet chilli for $0.80/kg which it dries at its own expense. In Gokwe, farmers earn an additional $0.60/kg through their value addition. IETC sesame prices started low at $0.45/kg at the beginning of the season, before increasing to $0.55/kg and then again to $0.60/kg towards the end of the season.

In 2017, Caritas earned $1 800 through the sale of 600 kg of dried chilli to BA at a price of $3.00/kg. This result was achieved from 750 plants on an area of about 378m2 – therefore, each plant produced about 800 g of dry chilli, equivalent to a wet chilli harvest of more than 47 tons/ha! Caritas also grew 1.25 ha of sesame, harvesting 950 kg valued at $570.

Costs

The table lists many of the materials and services usually associated with smallholder cropping enterprises. In some cases, where there is no cost, the service is still listed to explain how it was funded.

• Inputs: Caritas received 750 seedlings from BA at a cost of $0.01/seedling which she planted on 30 November 2016. She used 15.2 kg of Compound C, 15.2 kg of Ammonium Nitrate (AN) and 15 ml of Lambda agro-chemical. Costs were:
• Training and extension: Training and extension is especially important for a new commodity such as chilli. BA employed an extension officer to advise farmers and to manage its contract farming programme. These costs were absorbed by the company and provided to farmers as an embedded service.
• Land preparation services: Caritas prepared the field for CA with her family.
• Labour: The only activity requiring labour was harvesting – Caritas hired two people to assist her in harvesting the chilli, paying them a total of $47.
• Financial services: BA paid contracted farmers through an electronic payment system called ‘TextaCash’. Caritas had to travel to the nearest CABS branch at Gokwe Centre to retrieve her cash and was charged a 1% cash withdrawal fee. For many of the chilli farmers TextaCash represented their first banking experience.
• Transport services: BA operate a buying point in the area, to which Caritas delivers her dried chilli.

Net income

The gross income for chilli was $1 800, against total costs of $188, leaving a net margin of $1 612. This is equivalent to over $42 000/ha.

Impact

Caritas has benefitted through the market development work of APT through:

• Access to a high value cash crop: Chilli came at a time when the family and wider community had no cash crop after discontinuing cotton in 2009.
• Diversification: In addition to chilli, Caritas also grew sesame which has bolstered her income. The market development activities promoted under SIMBA have provided farmers with numerous options for diversification.
• Improved income: The years following discontinuation of cotton were characterized by income insecurity for the Dube household. The introduction of SIMBA has improved incomes for the Dube household and the wider community.
• Asset purchases: Caritas has invested some of her income into drilling and equipping a borehole, erecting a perimeter fence around the homestead, and building a kitchen and pit latrine.
• Training and extension: BA provides technical training and extension services to contracted farmers. The new skills have been adopted in other crops, which have also shown improved results.

Caritas chilli seedbed

In addition to market development work, Caritas has also benefited greatly from the other activities implemented by SIMBA including:

• Improved land use: CA has now become foundational all farming activities. The resulting improvements in soil physical properties and fertility will benefit the family in the medium and long terms.
• Improved lifestyles: The SIMBA programme also focused on hygiene, health, internal savings clubs and nutrition gardens. Caritas benefited immensely from these activities.

The Dube’s are excited with their new ideas and skills and hope to expand their farming activities into 2018 and beyond. The area of chilli under production is set to increase from 750 plants (378 m2) in 2017 to 2 000 plants (1 008 m2) in 2018. They have already established seedbeds for planting of the 2017/18 crop and are now waiting for the rains to plant. They also have plans to continue growing sesame for IETC.

Sustainability

The approach of APT is to identify existing and new value chain opportunities that work well in the socio-geographic context, and to lasting relations between farmers and lead firms, with the goal of developing a pro-poor inclusive business model. BA commenced their operations in Gokwe South in 2014 with a pilot programme targeting 10.5 ha. The programme expanded in 2015/16 season to 30 ha before contracting to 22 ha in 2016/17 due to a Nando’s oversupply. Continued surplus stocks mean that this area will be maintained in the 2017/18 season. Caritas is looking forward to many more years of producing chilli for BA.