Service Contract No 2007 / 147-446 Strategic ... - Swaziland

sufficient to cover all the farmers and their associated requirements, and results taketime (such as for testing the mercury level in soils).- Over-dependence on Out-sourced Services. This has its own set of practicalproblems. For example, the contracted hauler may fail to deliver the cane to the millon the set time (e.g. the truck breaks down en route to the mill) hence causing thedeterioration of the sucrose content before the cane reaches the mill.- Maintenance of Farm Equipment. This can be a result of lack of financial resources,technical know-how, or the use of unsuitable parts).- Inadequate Supportive Infrastructure. This includes inadequate holding dams(balancing dams contain only small volumes) and poor roads.- Lack of Water. This is mainly caused by drought and by upstream overuse of rivers orcanals.- Insecure Land Rights. At issue is the inability of land tenure arrangements to use SNLas collateral for loans. Landholding and chieftaincy disputes are also presentingstumbling blocks to cane development. An addition, as farmers do not own the land,and under traditional land tenure arrangements chiefs have the power to withdrawland rights, although seldom applied the risk of losing land is a deterrent toproductivity-enhancing investments; farmers may be inhibited from investing in theirland for fear of losing it.- Alternative Crops. With the use of vast tracts of land for the growth of sugar cane,limited availability of land for the production of other crops, and for the grazing oflivestock 19 .- HIV/AIDS Impact. The negative effect of HIV/AIDS on labour availability andproductivity is addressed under Key Aspect 4.The agriculture sector of Swaziland has historically been subsistence, thus a change to acash-based system holds an element of risk (or opportunity), on an economic, social andcultural level. Emerging cane growers and developers alike are concerned at the high risksassociated with irrigated agriculture, and particularly for sugar cane. Failure may tip the finebalance between success or failure, and having moved primarily to a cash economy, thesafety net provided by subsistence and a more traditional way of life has been reduced 20 .Ironically what is seen as a poverty alleviation project may in itself lead to poverty and highlevels of indebtedness. However, despite the difficult conditions facing cane growers, farmersremain optimistic within the sugar cane industry as “it still seems attractive compared withother cash crops”.19 However, most of the alternative crops to cane cannot attract funding. For example, the NAS provides that the newentrant growers can diversify 25% of their land to other crops, but this has not been successful because of viability issues.20 In the past, traditional cultural practices ensured that a social safety net was provided to the needy; support structurescushioned society from the effects of poverty. At the family and neighbourhood level resources were shared; at communitylevel the chief catered for the needy, drawing on surplus harvest and donations or gifts. Today, however, the extendedfamily is weaker due to urbanisation, migration and the affects of HIV/AIDS; for the traditional indlunkhulu system,resources have diminished. (www.unep.org)RDMU (Strategic Environmental Assessment of the National Adaptation Strategy) - Page 55