The Struggle

A couple weeks ago a neighbor came to me and asked me if I did Agric.  I said yes.  She asked if I would come to look at her rice nursery and asked me if I knew how to ride a moto.  I said no and as it turns out she doesn't either because we rode for five miles in first gear.

Thing is I do…kinda.  In high school when Dad let me ride his motorcycle to the end of the street and back.  But that was once, and it was terrifying and it was probably five years ago.

Her nursery did not look to hot.  It looked like she planted a couple different varieties and some pest, probably mice, had chopped it.  She was disappointed; she was going to have to find more seed.

Judith’s husband had a stroke a couple years ago.  He is still pretty weak and stays in the house.  He cannot speak but I go to greet him anyway, he does his best to communicate with hand gestures.  Judith is now responsible for the house and the farm and she has never farmed because that was always her husband’s job.

The next day I found myself in my AID project’s office and I ran into the rice business facilitator.  I told him the story and asked if there were enough inputs for maybe one more demonstration plot.  There was and he gave me enough seed for a whole acre.

I asked my other neighbor, an agriculture extension agent, to help us because this was a demonstration plot and I too am learning about rice production.

He totally took the lead.  He taught us how to soak the rice for twenty-four hours, changing the water every eight hours.  Then how to put the rice in a jute sack for a couple days and turn it and water it so it will germinate but not get so hot as to cook itself.

The seed pre germinated fabulously.  Then we cut open some jerry cans, drilled holes in them, filled em with soil and nursed in them so we could keep them in the house where mice would eat them and we could easily transport them to the field when needed.

Tomorrow is two weeks since we nursed.  That means we should transplant tomorrow.  Problem is, out of the three power tillers in the area, only one is available.  The man was supposed to till on Tuesday but it was market day, so he couldn't.  He was supposed to do it Wednesday but he was doing Mr. X’s instead.  He was supposed to do it Thursday but he had to do Mr Y’s field and after he did Mr.Y’s field the tiller broke.  And now it is Friday.  Ideally, we would transplant at twelve days.  Friday is fourteen days, but acceptable.  If we get the tiller Saturday, no one will work on Sunday and it’ll be Monday before we transplant, that is, if it doesn't rain.

This is the struggle of agriculture development work.  And when all of Judith’s struggle first started I was annoyed.  You just want to tell Ghana to get it together.  But then, you just chill out.  It’s been two years.  I've been here, I've done this, this is life, this is Africa.  The struggle.  The rice will get transplanted.  It will be late and it might suffer because of it.  The rains might come, they might not.  The power tiller might come, the harvester might come, and we might have thirty percent post harvest loss and we might have more we might have less.

I do not know if Judith’s being a woman and new to farming has anything to do with her being put dead last in the cue of who gets their land tilled.  I was there when the man told her he would do it Wednesday.  And then he tilled two men’s fields instead. 

I am a little biased as to one of the men.  This man, he gets a demo plot every year.  It seems to me, that if your project’s purpose was to increase the number of farmers using improved practices, you would choose different farmers every season.  But no, he gets free inputs every season.  I’ve been told that it’s because men like him who are literate and English speaking are easier to work with, they actually do what they are told.  Sometimes the illiterate and poorer farmers simply do not do the demonstration plots well, maybe they never get around to getting the field tilled, or they do not plant as instructed.  And too, when Ambassador’s or AID people come to meet the farmers, it always helps to have someone who can speak intelligently about what they have learned.

But my farmers farm on an irrigation scheme.  This is a hot spot for farmers.  Northern Region, Ghana, Farmers, the poorest of the poor.  AID agencies flock here.  They bring demonstration plots and inputs and sometimes equipment and services.  And I have been in the room when a project comes and says “We want to give five demonstration plots.  Here are the names of the farmers we have chosen.”  And I have seen this man, the one who always gets a plot, say “My name is not on this list.”  And everyone laughs and it’s a joke but in the back of my head something tells me it is not entirely for humor.  It’s like when you leave the village and people say “Bring me bread!”  They are half joking but also kind of saying “Hey, it’d be real nice if you brought me something from town.”  Or when people say, “Those are nice shoes.  Leave them for me when you go back to the US.”  This is also kind of a joke but kind of saying, “Seriously, I like them, give them to me when you leave.”

I do not have the heart for the work.  I admire those that do.

There is beauty in a community that fully relies on one another.   The village raising a child.  But there is beauty in hard, honest work.  Generosity.  Fairness.  These are luxuries right?  Generosity and giving and fairness are things people give when they can afford to give them.  Can we judge people for looking out for number one and getting all that they can while they can?

It is no ones fault that you had seven children and are paying for each of them to go to University.  Its no one else’s fault that you have two motorcycles, two refrigerators, a television and satellite dish, and no toilet in the house.

But everyone struggles.  So what is poor?  Who is poor?  And who do we choose to help?  And who is worthy of the help?  And at what point do you give up on the poor farmer that will not take up improved practices and give to the intelligent, pretty well off farmer that will simply do what you say and allow you to count him in the number of success stories you send to your donor?

I will say that every farmer at the scheme is supposed to be on profile and Judith was not.  It was this man's job to profile the farmers in his area and she was not profiled.  There is no way she could have been chosen to participate in a demonstration plot because no one knew she existed. 

If this one demonstration plot, done in the last three months of my two year service is the only legacy I leave behind I will count myself successful.  Just a few morsels of knowledge, just one woman put on the map.