The Rolihlahla Agriculture Microfinance Project Ltd (RAMP LTD) was invited to the meeting as a prospective partner of FANRPAN.

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Rolihlahla Agriculture
Microfinance Project Ltd
(RAMP LTD)
REPORT ON THE FANRPAN HIGH-LEVEL FOOD
SECURITY PARTNERS’ MEETING
HELD ON THURSDAY, 29 MAY 2014, IN
CENTURION, PRETORIA, RSA
THEME: RETOOLING AFRICAN FAMILY
FARMING FOR CLIMATE SMART AGRICULTURE
AND POST-HARVEST LOSS REDUCTION
Celebrating Africa Day and enhancing strategic
partnerships for collective action
Mr Noah Ben Adam, COO, RAMP LTD (left) Dr Lindiwe Majele
Sibanda, CEO, FANRPAN (middle), and Mr Jeremie Muamba, CEO,
RAMP LTD (right)
The last week of May 2014 had been marked by
intense celebration by the peoples of Africa of the
51st
anniversary of the continent’s unity, with the
D-Day being the 25th
of May. The week was
crowned in South Africa by the FANRPAN High-
Level Food Security Partnerships’ Meeting, held on
Thursday, 29 May 2014 with the theme Retooling
African Family Farming for Climate Smart
Agriculture and Post-harvest Loss Reduction. The
Rolihlahla Agriculture Microfinance Project Ltd
(RAMP LTD) was invited to the meeting as a
prospective partner of FANRPAN. Indeed, RAMP
LTD’s profile matches the meeting’s
abovementioned theme. It powers the family
farming by making poor families the main
beneficiaries of its pre-loan social development
package, and of its consecutive agribusiness-
oriented loan schemes. Besides, it promotes a
climate-smart agriculture, working to fulfil its
following goals: eradicating poverty in Africa,
becoming itself a force to be reckoned with in the
development bank sector, and significantly
contributing to the return to a pollution-free
global environment.
This development meeting took place in the
context of the United Nations’ proclamation of
2014 as the International Year of Family Farming,
the sharpening of the global issue of climate
change, and the timely imperative of celebrating
Africa Day and enhancing strategic partnerships
for collective action toward a continent-wide
development. Thence, in its capacity as one of the
world’s top think-tanks conceiving policies for a
food secure Africa, and bringing this global
context down to Africa’s realities, FANRPAN
organised the meeting with two concepts—
African family farming and climate smart
agriculture—as its focal points. These concepts
were addressed in four manners: panel discussion;
theatre for policy advocacy; positing issues,
policies, frameworks and recommendations for
climate smart agriculture & post-harvest
management; and opportunities for linkages and
synergies (partnering).
First, the panel discussion regarded the results of
FANRPAN-sponsored research on the situation of
family farming in South Africa (precisely in the
provinces of Limpopo and Eastern Cape) and its
position vis-à-vis climate change. The research has
made inter alia the following findings:
(1) Out of the households identified in sampled
wards as farmers (2.494 in Limpopo and 1446 in
Eastern Cape), only a very small percentage is
well-off, resilient to shocks (3% in Limpopo and
5% in Eastern Cape), whereas the very large
portion is moderate, i.e. surviving but on the edge
of falling to shocks (74% in Limpopo and 85% in
Eastern Cape), and the rest is completely deprived,
depending on humanitarian assistance, and
vulnerable to shocks (23% in Limpopo and 10% in
Eastern Cape);

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(2) Above results show that most of farming
households need funding and social protection,
while, because the setting is tough for farming,
many people are content with social grants for
their livelihood;
(3) A regular delivering of weather information is
crucial to responsible behaviours and decision
making by smallholder farmers; however, while
research in climate is facilitated by the availability
of good data from the South African Weather
Services, there is a need of reliable data on local
weather, and this requires regular governmental
funding of the expert work on local level;
furthermore, increasing of temperature is certain
in the future, still there is no confidence about the
future of rainfall;
(4) The major determinants of vulnerability of
family farming are the geographic location (i.e.
some localities are more drought-prone than
others), gender (female-headed households are
more vulnerable than male-headed ones), and
ownership of an ox, which leads to a more
yielding agriculture; and
(5) The adaptation strategies include irrigation
(especially for staples such as sorghum and
maize), water conservation, and soil fertilizing.
Second, the theatre for policy advocacy, performed
by young students from the University of
Swaziland, spelled out the reality of climate
change in Africa as a consequence of polluting
habits such as vehicle circulation, cow defecating,
deforestation for domestic cooking, etc.; and the
intervention of NGOs to provide farmers with
adaptation solutions such as drought-resistant
seeds, vaccine for livestock and poultry, funding,
and access to domestic and international free
trade. It ended up with a damning observation:
“Smallholder farmers contribute the least to the
climate change, yet they are the most vulnerable
[to its shocks]”. To correct this reality, the actors
spread a message consisting of 8 resolutions
running as follows:
 Address and streamline climate change in
national agendas, planning and
harmonising formulations of climate
smart policies within and across the
departments;
 Agricultural extension officers should be
sensitised to and be trained in climate
change issues;
 There should be no blanket approach to
service delivery; we need targeted
responses to communities which are
dealing with climate change issues;
 Hold households to be assessed and
selected using reliable tools such as
household vulnerability index and
interventions that should be responsive to
the specific needs;
 Complement more small holder farmers’
indigenous knowledge to meet scientific
knowledge for climate smart agriculture;
 Research funding organisations in South
Africa need to have a research ground
thrust dedicated to climate smart
agriculture;
 The national meteorology department
should provide simplified versions of
seasonal weather forecasts to be
broadcast for farmers; and
 There is a need to integrate climate smart
agriculture into school curriculum and
turning programmes at all levels.
Third, the lecture on climate smart agriculture &
post-harvest management is highlighted in the
FANRPAN-sponsored study conducted by Dr
Phineas Khazamula Chauke (University of Venda)
and titled Analyses of Existing Institutional
Arrangements and the Policy Environment for

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Managing Risk for Crop Production and Post-
harvest Handling in Climate. The study shows the
determination of the South African government
and other role players within the country to tackle
the climate change issue for a climate-smart,
sustainably productive farming. For instance, the
Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries
(DAFF), through its Directorate Climate Change
and Disaster Management, has charted climate
change mitigation strategies that are “multifaceted
but focus mainly on awareness campaigns,
research and climate negotiation at the UFCCC
[United Nations Framework Convention on
Climate Change] level” (p. 20). Besides, to confirm
the effectiveness of this resolution, the study
reveals that, regarding the total production of
maize and wheat in the planted area in successive
decades from 1970 to 2010, there is an increase in
production due to the fact that “farmers have
developed strategies to mitigate the effect of
climate change as the [40 year] period was
affected by a number of disasters” (p.23). Lastly, it
reports that the South African National Climate
Change Responsive Policy has outlined very useful
intervention strategies “for mitigation against
climate change, and thus to
improve crop production” (p. 43),
such as the use of the
National GHG [greenhouse
gas] Trajectory Range, an in-
depth assessment of all
mitigation potential,
adoption of a flexible and
least cost carbon budget
approach for companies in
relevant sectors, and a pricing of
carbon and provision of economic
incentives.
Fourth and last, the culminating moment was the
opportunities given to partners for linkages and
synergies. In other words, time was given to
RAMP LTD to tell the partners what it is, its
mandate and approach, and the nature of
partnership it contemplates to foster with
FANRPAN. Indeed, the three-minute presentation
by Noah Ben Adam, RAMP LTD COO, gave the
partners the occasion to know RAMP LTD as a
climate-smart agribusiness development
microfinance institution that has a social and
economic mandate. Socially, through the awarding
of small loans, it enables the poor to take control
of their lives through entrepreneurship and to
meet basic needs. Economically, it plays the triple
role of custody, midwifery and husbandry of the
small agribusiness community. Moreover, its
socioeconomic mandate is undertaken through the
combination of two successful microfinance
approaches: the credit awarding approach,
initiated by the Grameen Bank, and the “credit
plus” approach, bred by the Bangladesh Rural
Advancement Committee. Lastly, RAMP LTD
expects a mutually enriching partnership with
FANRPAN, eyeing the latter’s contribution in
terms of technical assistance in training clients in
agro-ecology, and in instructing the staff to find a
right niche for the MFI in a highly competitive,
fluctuating international economy.
JEREMIE MUAMBA DINKOLOBO
CEO, Rolihlahla Agriculture Microfinance
Project Ltd (RAMP LTD)
Cell Phone: +27 767 140 416
Fax: +27 866 636 624
E-mail: jmuamba@rampltd.co.za
Website: www.rampltd.co.za