Sad, sick hippo hangs out at the stone wall (with a nearby opening!) a few feet in front of us at Mlilwane Park, Swaziland.
Rick is assisted in getting redressed as a proper Swazi man before we attend the Reed Dance in Swaziland.
Men from the royal Dlamini family attend the Reed Dance.
A royal Dlamini family princess—indicated by the red feathers in her hair—relaxes with her mobile phone before she marches in the Reed Dance in Swaziland.
Nearly 40,000 young women parade before King Mswati III of Swaziland during the Reed Dance, in hopes of being chosen to be his next wife.
Incomplete and abandoned buildings contribute to an eerie feeling in the downtown area of Maputo, Mozambique.
Rick stops along typically littered sidewalk near a colorful car, in Maputo, Mozambique.
During the Junior Achievement pilot, a LULOTE staffer teaches one part of the JA Personal Economics program to Swazi high schoolers in Manzini, Swaziland.
High school girls discuss a team activity during the pilot of the JA Personal Economics program in Manzini, Swaziland.
High school boys work on an individual activity during the pilot of the JA Personal Economics program in Manzini, Swaziland.
At our Emafini cottage, Rick stands next to our car with a few now-shrunken hailstones which destroyed the windshield, blew out the back window, dented the car and broke both rear view mirrors during our last week in Swaziland.
Businesswoman of the Year Award Dinner
The big event of the next week was the Swaziland Businesswoman of the Year Award dinner. This was an annual award that had been initiated the previous year. TechnoServe had purchased a table’s worth of tickets, so ten of us from the office attended. In many ways, it was like all the award dinners for many causes that Wendy and I have attended in the past. On the other hand, it had its own Swaziland peculiarities.
Wendy was an expert in running this type of event. She didn’t enjoy doing it, but she was an expert. She had run many events for Junior Achievement in Silicon Valley over the previous four years, including the annual awards dinner for over five hundred people. The organizers of the Swazi event could have used her help. One of her first rules was to plan the schedule very tightly and then force people, especially speakers, to adhere to it. This is a principle that the Oscar Awards finally adopted when it started to appear that the ceremonies would run completely overnight. A second principle was to limit the number of speakers to only those you must have. She used these principles to keep the events to a reasonable length and to keep the audience somewhat attentive.
The organizers for this dinner didn’t adhere to either of these principles. The opening remarks by the mistress of ceremonies were followed by welcoming speeches from each of the two major sponsors. Then there were speeches by the acting prime minister, the minister of Industry and Employment, and finally the keynote speech by the businesswoman of the year from South Africa. All of these speeches preceded the presentation of the profiles of the candidates, and all of the above preceded the main course. Dinner was served at 10:00 p.m.!
In partial defense of the speakers, one of the reasons that any speech had to be so long was the Swazi custom of recognizing and honoring all of the attending dignitaries at the beginning of each speech. Not to do this was considered very bad form, and if you overlook someone, you may have made a powerful enemy for life. Consequently, each speech began, “Honorable acting prime minister, honorable minister of Industry and Employment, global chairman of sponsor number one, African chairman of sponsor number one, Swaziland managing director of sponsor number one, managing director of sponsor number two (fortunately, they were a local company and didn’t have visiting chairmen), members of parliament, members of the diplomatic corps, captains of industry, etc., ladies and gentlemen.” This only added to the tedium of the speeches and the restlessness of the audience. A few times, the audience had to be quieted down so the speaker could actually be heard.
However, no one had to be quieted when the minister of Industry and Employment was speaking. He was a dynamic, engaging personality, and he used humor to keep the audience attentive. However, it was the sort of humor, directed at women, that hasn’t been heard in an open speech in the United States for nearly fifty years. It wasn’t directly hostile, just offensive to people like us who really believe in the equality of women. He joked about women’s weight, age, attractiveness, and role in the household. I winced with every barb. He got laughs, but I just kept wondering what the primarily female audience was really thinking. Did they just accept it as harmless as women would have done in the United States fifty years ago? Or were they being outwardly polite while seething inside? There was no way to know.
Producing Cotton, Milk, and Pork
With Insights on Race
Leslie went to Washington DC for a series of meetings, so she asked me to attend a meeting of the Swaziland Organic Cotton Task Force, which was working to develop the potential for growing organic cotton in Swaziland. With the increasing global interest in preserving the environment, a nascent market for organic cotton clothes had emerged. A large global retailer specifically had become interested in offering clothes made from organic cotton and had communicated this to one of their clothing subcontractors, Tex-ray, located in Swaziland. Since much of Swaziland’s textile and clothing industry had migrated to China in recent years, the government was greatly interested in retaining some clothing manufacturing in Swaziland. Also, organic cotton growing presented an opportunity for a large number of Swazi farmers. Traditional cotton had been grown in Swaziland in the past, but as world cotton prices collapsed, Swazi farmers found they couldn’t make a profit so let their land lie fallow or switched to other crops.
Organic cotton presented a big opportunity, but it also presented big challenges. The first was simple economics. The projected cost of producing organic cotton was more than three times the cost for producing traditional cotton. Consequently, the biggest question was, “Will there be a market for organic cotton?” Would consumers be willing to pay the premium to have their clothes made from organic cotton, which, unlike organic food, offers little direct benefit to the individual? And if there was a market, would it be large enough for the large global retailer and others to pursue on a continuing basis? Or was this a fad? Beyond the basic economics were all of the challenges to actually producing organic cotton, without typical fertilizers, pesticides, or herbicides; on certified, uncontaminated land; not close to the spraying of other crops, etc. However, at this early stage, the opportunity outweighed the challenges, and there was great interest in government and private industry to move ahead. Hence the task force.
There were about twenty people in the meeting. The chairman came from the Ministry of Agriculture as did a number of the other participants who represented different departments within the ministry. Several agricultural research stations were represented as was the engineering department responsible for designing irrigation systems and the land survey department. Tex-ray and the Cotton Board were also represented. The Cotton Board was a parastatal (quasi-government) organization, somewhat separate from the ministry of agriculture, and was responsible for regulating and promoting the cotton industry in Swaziland.
The meeting began with a prayer, as most public meetings did in Swaziland. The chairman then made a few opening remarks about the importance of the opportunity and exhorted everyone to work hard to make it successful. Then we reviewed and corrected the minutes from the last meeting. After correction, the minutes were accepted. The primary item on the agenda was the planned pilot planting of organic cotton, which had to occur within a month or the opportunity would be lost for a year. Many things had to happen before the pilot planting could occur, and these activities depended on a lot of different organizations. The person most on top of all of the dependencies and with the greatest motivation seemed to be Dr. Dan, the agricultural expert from Tex-ray. Dr. Dan had made a lot of calls trying to get the many required parties organized. He had also gotten Tex-ray to make a number of commitments necessary for the project to move forward. At this point, he was mostly reiterating the actions and related responsibilities necessary for the pilot. Tex-ray had committed to buying the cotton coming out of the pilot at an attractive price. Tex-ray was also arranging and paying for the land to be certified as organic. Dr. Dan reiterated the need for the Cotton Board to advance the money for the planting materials to be paid back after harvest. The most difficult commitment seemed to be the need for the Agricultural Ministry to pay for irrigation to be installed.
Regarding the irrigation, the chairman called on the representative from the engineering department who had been asked to design and ultimately construct an irrigation system for the pilot land. The engineer said that he had a problem locating the precise plot on his maps so wasn’t sure what the access to water would be. Then he went into the advantages and disadvantages of a drip system versus a standard spray system. Several other people joined in the discussion, and we learned a lot about irrigation systems. The consensus seemed to be that drip would be better from a long-term conservation and uniformity of watering perspective, but it would require more precise design engineering, would cost more, and take longer to install. We were reassured that a spray system would not damage or stain the cotton bolls. In the end, it was decided to pursue a spray system because it seemed to offer fewer short-term roadblocks, and we only had a month to get it installed. The chairman then reminded everyone of a larger roadblock. Although they would make every effort to get the Agriculture Ministry to pay for the irrigation, everyone needed to remember that the government was running out of money, so it was difficult to get money for any new projects. In fact, the local phone company had cut off service to many government offices (for nonpayment), and the government employees were making calls on local pay phones.
This wasn’t the only challenge. There were also questions as to the tenancy of the land and who would do the farming. Regarding the land tenancy, much of the land in Swaziland was not individually owned. It was owned as Swazi Nation Land and was given to specific people for beneficial purposes by the local chiefs. If the land was used for the intended purpose and generally benefited the community, the occupant of the land could possess it in perpetuity. However, if it was not used beneficially, then it could be taken away, although the process for doing this was not clear. The land designated for the pilot had been given to another group for farming, but this group had stopped farming several years prior. The task force had gotten permission for the pilot, but it wasn’t clear whether the land would be available in the future if the pilot was successful. Someone was designated to investigate this situation and to navigate the political processes with all the players to secure the rights to the land going forward. A final issue was who would do the farming for the pilot project. A group of needy women from the local area had been found to do the farming, but the interest of the local politician was primarily that the women make sufficient money from the project, not necessarily that it be a good test as to whether it would be a viable crop. So despite the fact that this was a high-priority project for a lot of people, many large challenges and conflicts remained; and there was only a month to go before planting must occur. The meeting closed with another prayer, maybe because we would need divine help to make the pilot successful.
Cotton wasn’t the only new sector I was learning about. In parallel with my other projects, I had been supporting Mkhululi in his work with smallholder dairy farmers. Their problems were inconsistent profitability and inability to expand. At the time, Parmalat (the dominant dairy processor in Swaziland) didn’t want milk from the smallholder dairy farmers because they milked their cows by hand, which didn’t conform to the sanitary procedures that Parmalat required. However, even if Parmalat would have accepted their milk, the farmers didn’t want to sell it because they couldn’t make money at the price that Parmalat was paying. These small dairy farmers could and did make money selling their milk or milk products (such as emasi) directly to consumers. In this way, they cut out the middleman. The consumer got a lower price and the farmer got a higher price. However, this informal market usually went only slightly past the neighbors of the individual farmer and no farther. The margins were good, but the demand was not consistent, and there was no opportunity for growth.
TechnoServe was looking for an opportunity to change the market. We knew that the small farmers could not compete on price; they had to have some way of differentiating their product. Mkhululi and I had heard that Dalcrue, one of the larger dairy farms in Swaziland, had just advertised the introduction of their branded products to the market. We thought that this might provide an opportunity, so we went to meet with their CEO. Although Dalcrue was one of the larger dairy farms in Swaziland, it was small compared to many dairy farms just across the border in South Africa, which could be twenty times larger. Dalcrue had been supplying most of its milk to Parmalat for processing and sale. However, at the price that Parmalat was willing to pay for milk, Dalcrue was barely making a profit. To become profitable, Dalcrue felt they had to go to the market themselves with their own brand.
We thought the Dalcrue brand might provide a channel for our small farmers to differentiate themselves in the market. Our only previous idea was based on the fact that the small dairy farmers generally owned Jersey cows versus the Friesen cows held by the large dairy farms. Jersey cows don’t produce as much milk, but their milk is richer and better suited for certain cheeses and other dairy products. We hoped that the small dairy farmers could find a manufacturer of cheese or other dairy products who would be willing to pay more for their Jersey milk because their consumers would appreciate the Jersey cheese. We hadn’t found one, but we thought Dalcrue might be a possibility. In our discussion, we discovered we were very premature. Dalcrue had only just announced their brand, and they had a lot of work on their hands just to fulfill their immediate plans. They weren’t ready to even talk about taking on a new endeavor. We still had a pleasant conversation and agreed to stay in touch.
After hearing that, even Dalcrue had trouble making money in dairy; my opinion on the potential for a dairy industry in Swaziland declined even further. As I had presented to the people in our office, we needed to focus our resources, and I didn’t think the dairy industry was one to focus on. However, Leslie and Mkhululi weren’t ready to give up on dairy. They felt that even if it wasn’t commercially attractive, a dairy industry might provide a source of income for smallholder farmers. I argued that if it wasn’t commercially viable that it wouldn’t be independently sustainable, a very important concept for TechnoServe. TechnoServe does not believe in being a long-term source of charity or subsidy. Their objective is to establish market systems that can survive on their own and then let them go. We couldn’t agree on whether a dairy industry could sustain itself in Swaziland, so we continued to explore possibilities. As we continued to search for ways to help the small dairy farmers, Mkhululi and I were invited to a meeting of large and small farmers at the Dairy Board offices. We had also been invited to share our ideas on the milk industry with the director of the Dairy Board in a private meeting.
