Jade and Nicola Visit some Eswatini Farmers
This morning we made up way up to the Eswatini hills to visit three farmers who are part of the Woman Farmer Foundation. We drove up dirt tracks and quite often ‘off the beaten track’ for quite some time in order to reach the first farm. However, we did get beautiful views of the surrounding countryside and sometimes had to wait until the cows and goats finished crossing the road before we could pass.
We arrived at the first farm belonging to Nomfundo Vilakati. She was proud to show us her fields and talk about the crops she has grown and how she uses her chicken manure for fertiliser so everything is entirely organic and natural. She has been struggling with getting water to her farm to irrigate her fields as she is quite high up on the hills and the river is below and she cannot afford a pump to pump the water from the river up the hill to her farm. At the moment she is trying to capture any run off water from further up the hill but struggles when the weather has been dry for a while. This means that she has had to rent a piece of land in another part of Eswatini that she is farming as well to ensure that she has a harvest and has crops to sell.
Nomfundo came with us to the next farm we visited belonging to Paulini Mkhatjwa. We learnt that the animals are kept in a kraal (pronounced crawl) at night, this is an enclosure made of upright branches which is also used as a meeting place or social space for the men of the homestead. Paulini is growing lots of crops including maize, tomatoes, green peppers, lettuce, cabbage, onions, coffee, bananas to name but a few. Her land is on a slope so she has had to make several terraces so that the crops do not wash away when it rains, the hilly terrain mean that many farmers have to do this. She insisted that we try a drink she made for us all which I can only describe as runny porridge, it doesn’t translate in English. It is made with leftover porridge and fermented fruit and is drank for breakfast and as a snack throughout the day. She served us this with the tiniest sweetest bananas I’ve ever tasted, they were super yummy.
The last visit of the day was with Nomsa Dvuba who is a former finalist in the Woman Farmer of the Year Competition and this was evident when we saw the size and quality of her farm. You can see immediately the methods taught by the experts at the Woman Farmer Foundation training in clear view such as a board at the start of each new crop stating the crop, the date it was planted and the number of seedlings planted and using stakes to encourage the crops to grow upwards. It was clear that Nomsa has grown her farm gradually over the years and she is now very active in her community helping and advising other woman and young farmers. She is hopeful that she will be a finalist again in this years competition.
Thank you so much to the Teresa, Nkosinathi and Damian (pictured below) and of course to Carlos and Sonia and the rest of the team in the factory for looking after us so well and giving us an unforgettable experience. Jade, I and the rest of the True Origin team look forward to working with you all more closely in the future.
