Report from BHW Zambia Partnership Facilitator

Key person: Norman Tonga

Recent Events

Bibles

Again, this year Bright Hope World funded 200 bibles in the local language to be purchased and distributed in the local community. These have been a real blessing for the people, as they are able to read the word of God in their own language.

The man pictured above has received a bible, and he is one of the local chiefs’ advisors. He also pastors a local church. 

Church Planting

Norman has planted another church in the region, and the new members have bandied together to set up a structure for them to meet in. 

Bright Hope World Networks

One initiative that came from the Zambian conferences held in the last few years, was the request for BHW partners to be able to visit each other to gain more experience and ideas about how to serve their communities.

In May, Peter Bobo Chomba from Chaba (ZAM16) visited Norman in Chipata. Peter is pictured on the right, with Norman and his wife Hilda. The main purpose of the visit was to see how the soyabean program was working, and gain knowledge of how to grow this crop at standard. Peter was very much encouraged by the visit and has now started a pilot program in his own area growing soyabeans. The benefit of this is to have another variety of cash crop for the community.

Soyabean Farming

Since our last visit, the harvest of soyabeans from the 150 farmers who were helped with seed loans of 25kg per grower has been completed (June 2023). Almost all farmers repaid the loan by giving 100kg of their harvest for Norman to store, sell half to a company called “Share Africa Zambia” at a committed price of 12ZMK, and use the other half as seed for farmers for the following season. 

One poor farmer (right) had all his harvest decimated by fire, after he had cut the stalks from the field and transported them to his house for threshing.  

They received close to 15,000 kg of produce stored in 50kg sacks, or 300 bags, from this program. Most farmers who did well, realized on average 18 x 50kg bags from the area planted of 1 acre.  

After harvest, things are a bit difficult for farmers because the markets for the soyabeans don’t announce a price for some time. Some farmers are forced to sell at a low price, purely because of lack of cash flow, as they need funds for food, school fees and other household requirements. People called 'suitcase sellers' offer around 4ZMK per kilo at this time, where for the past 10 years the price had sat at 12ZMK from the Government food reserve program and other interested buyers. 

Norman made Bright Hope World aware of this situation and after discussions we agreed to send a lump sum loan to enable Norman to buy 4 sacks each from the 150 growers at a downpayment price of 6ZMK per kilo. The plan was for Norman then to store the produce until the prices were announced, hoping that the same 12ZMK would be the price. He would then sell and give the growers 5ZMK and have 1ZMK per kilo as income generation for the partnership projects. The loan from Bright Hope World would then be repaid.

The plan was good until the government announced a price (August 2023) of just 6ZMK per kilo. Norman had stored 600 bags from the downpayment program, which once properly cleaned (by winnowing) gave a net of 500 bags to sell. That is a total of 25 tonnes of soyabeans.

The reasons for the low price became more apparent when it was seen that in many other areas of Zambia where they do not usually grow soyabeans, they had. The main reasons for this were the normal maize crops that are grown with Government assistance for inputs of seed and fertilizer had been significantly reduced. People were looking for a cheaper crop to grow with soyabeans not needing as much fertilizer.

Over a WhatsApp conversation with Norman in early December 2023 a plan was made. Norman states that “We are hoping for the government to buy soyabean next year because they have given inputs to the farmers. Besides relying just on the government, we have also gone further to connect with other already existing companies that are on the market to help us in marketing. We believe it will work out in Jesus’ name”.

“The difference is that, when the government gives out farm inputs to farmers, that means the next season they will buy farm products in that year. Another point is that other farmers have grown crops rather than soyabeans in the 2024 season meaning there will be a higher demand for soyabean at next year’s harvest. These are predictions based on the farmer analysis in the next season”.

From this discussion it was decided to use 25,000 kilos as an extended loan program for 300 farmers for the 2023-2024 farming season. 200 farmers were given 100 kgs of seed and 100 farmers 50 kgs of seed. Those who received 100 kgs will repay 200 kgs and those with 50 kgs will repay 100 kgs of produce at the end. 

At the end of this year’s harvest (June) they expect to have 800 to 900 cleaned bags to sell from farmers, and then start to repay the loan.

We have not heard from Norman since April, but this is normal for this time of year as he is very busy harvesting, and phone coverage in his local village is very poor. The picture shows Norman in his own field of soyabeans, which looks fantastic. Thankfully the Chipata area has not been affected so much by the drought that has been declared a national emergency by the president and seen food prices increase by 400% over the last few months.  

Comments

We continue to pray for Norman and the team who are running the soyabean program. It has the potential to impact so many families in the area.   

We will discuss what happens to the loan fund for purchasing soyabeans once more detail on pricing and harvest for the current season has been received.