The beautiful Cata valley is rich and fertile, and there is an abundance of water, directly from the Amathole Mountains, making it ideal for agriculture. A defunct ‘legacy’ flood irrigation system has been repaired enabling it to function again. A local team of agriculture workers is currently cultivating an ever-increasing land area that is serviced by the system. To supplement the vegetable production that is presently being implemented, in future the team will establish a fruit orchard, produce animal fodder, use wheat to produce bread and grow groundnuts to enable the production of peanut-butter.
The agriculture workers are currently employed by the Cata Communal Property Association. Payments to the workers forms an important inflow of resources into the village (albeit from the villagers’ own pool of development funding). During the six months from July to December 2006, R26 065 was paid to the irrigation workers.
The over-arching target that we set for this period was to attempt to reach the 5 ha (under cultivation) milestone. However, abnormally high rainfall during the months of September, October and November (2006 has gone down as the third wettest year in the East London region since 1970!) thwarted our ambitions in this regard because project members were not able to plant when the land was saturated. Nevertheless, planting did take place during dryer periods and by the end of the year, a total of approximately 3.7 ha had been planted, to the following crops, amongst others: cabbage, maize and potatoes. Inputs supplied by BRC during this period included 10 000 cabbage seeds, 24 bags of potatoes, 50 kg maize and fertilizer.
Various crops (primarily cabbage) were harvested during these six months. Income derived from sales during the period totalled R13 232.
This project is implemented with all interested households, through a project committee. It involves arranging and manoeuvring one’s garden such that water flowing through the homestead is harvested and stored, for purposes of vegetable production. There are about forty families in Cata that are presently implementing this technology, to good effect. The project will shortly be strengthened through the construction of DWAF-sponsored homestead dams.
Since its inception in 2004, we have been aware of the positive impact that the project has had on household nutrition. We were not sure, however, whether the project was meeting its gender objectives. In August 2006, BRC and a local assistant administered gender assessment questionnaires to ten members of the Water for Food Project. Some of the key findings of the assessment were as follows:
- In 67% of gardens, women decide about production and harvesting.
- In 78% of cases, women decide about what is to be consumed and what is to be sold.
- Expenditure decisions about money obtained from sales of produce are made by women in 67% of cases.
- The produce harvested from the garden makes a moderate or significant contribution to homestead food security in 77% of cases.
These findings indicate that the project is having a gender-progressive impact, as designed.
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