Why was there no famine following the 1992 Southern African drought? II/ The consequences of household responses Draft 11 July 2002

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1 1 Why was there no famine following the 1992 Southern African drought? II/ The consequences of household responses Draft 11 July 2002 Introduction The 1992 Southern African drought was the region s worst drought in living memory (ODA, 1995). However, famine was averted largely by the activities of those most affected by the drought, rather than by relief food distributions. Villagers sources of food included the remnants of their harvests, wild foods, the exchange of labour or livestock (those that survived the drought) for grain - and, in particular, purchases of maize-meal or grain, often at greatly inflated prices. Purchases were the largest source of staple food (maize-meal and grain) for most poor households. The food that many of the poorest households received from relief food programmes lasted them for little over a day a week on average. But people do not live on staple food alone. While obtaining sufficient food is a major preoccupation of rural households, especially the poorest, during drought and in normal' years, they also engage in other livelihood activities throughout even severe crises. During drought, obtaining water is clearly as important as obtaining food. In 1992 women spent several hours day fetching water from more distant water pints after their own had dried up. Villagers tried to earn money by various, sometimes damaging, activities to finance increased maizemeal purchases - during the 1992 drought, purchases were the largest source of food for many people. Other livelihood activities continued: villagers tried to keep livestock alive in different ways, they de-stumped and cultivated fields, and they planted crops. While their many activities helped prevent starvation in the short term, these activities had several deleterious consequences for their livelihood security. Two of the main reasons for these damaging consequences was that, for most of the poor households studied, purchases comprised the largest source of basic food, and market processes for both food and rural commodities (especially livestock) worked against poor households to an even greater extent than normal. This paper summarises some of the consequences of smallholders responses to the 1992 drought, and some of the processes by which their responses compromised their livelihood security. 1/ Most of the effective responses to the 1992 drought consisted of activities undertaken by those most affected by it Most of the effective responses to the 1992 drought consisted of activities undertaken by those most affected by it. Drought-affected villagers obtained 70-80% of their staple food from non-aid sources, mostly from purchases, which provided 2-3 times as much staple food as drought relief programmes. They accounted for around % of a household s cereal requirements. Similarly the largest proportion of responses to water problems comprised activities by villagers. Women, sometimes helped by their children, often spent several hours a day times as long as usual - fetching water from distant water points. Emergency water programmes made little immediate difference to the majority of drought affected people (by mid-november 1992 only 11% of the target of 4,086 pumps had been installed in Zimbabwe s rural areas), though they did improve water supplies in a number of villages over the longer term. Villagers received little external support for their livestock, very little help to reduce non-survival expenditure, and no assistance to increase their incomes. The quantities of seed and fertiliser distributed through rehabilitation programmes were relatively substantial, but the amounts received by the poorest villagers were frequently less than the ration; moreover, they sometimes arrived too late for use.. This is an acknowledgement of the relatively large role villagers played in 1992, rather than a criticism of institutional responses, at least in a narrow sense. Within the limits of conventional emergency programmes, the 1992 relief and rehabilitation programme, one of the largest and most efficient ever undertaken (ODI, 1994; SADC, 1997), was a success.

2 2 2/ The 1992 drought produced various changes in market processes which worked against poor households to an even greater extent than normal Trading is the world's oldest profession. Where there are people, there are markets, which exist even in the worst situations. Markets involve net gains for both buyers and sellers, otherwise they would not exist. But the gains are not equally distributed. Expenditure on staple food and market changes Food crises generally worsen imbalances in net gains: in particular, they increase the costs (direct and opportunity costs) of buying maize-meal. Purchases not only comprised the largest source of maize-meal for many villagers in 1992 (section 1/ above): most households' expenditure on maize-meal actually increased greatly during the 1992 drought, due to two interacting changes: a) the quantity of food purchases, especially by poor farmers, increased: because they could not obtain sufficient food from other sources to compensate for large reductions in their grain harvests b) basic food prices increased, due to increased demand and/or reduced supply Moreover, poorer households generally increased their expenditure on staple food more than wealthier households, who had larger grain stocks and harvests at the start of the drought. The consequences of these interacting effects were greater than they appeared: while price rises were obvious, the increased quantity of household purchases which contributed to these price rises was less apparent (especially among poor households). A maize-meal price rise of 50% coupled with an increase of 50% in the quantity households bought (both levels of increase were common in 1992) meant that households more than doubled their expenditure (which increases by 125%) on maize -meal. These processes were asymmetric: their negative effects were worse for the poorest people. Poor people s income normally tends to arrive irregularly and in small amounts. This was even more common in 1992, when they could not afford to spend money on transport to cheaper locations, nor could they save money to take advantage of bulk purchases at lower cost. Incomes and market changes During the drought income from water-dependent sources (such as beer brewing, brick-making, vegetable production) fell due to input supply problems: water availability reduced,. To finance increased food purchases, villagers (especially poor villagers) intensified attempts to generate income from non-water dependent sources. The drought produced two sets of market-related changes: - increased supply of commodities / products: farm labour (during the 1992/3 planting season), wood, mats, gold... - decreased demand: for farm labour (during the greatly reduced 1992 harvest), wood, mats,...due to increased expenditure on food. These changes interacted to reduce prices, and therefore incomes, particularly for poor people. 3/ Some activities helped poor households survive the 1992 drought at the cost of compromising their medium-term livelihood security Most poor villagers are deficit producers, surviving on the edge of economic life. They already exploit a variety of food and income sources in non-drought years to compensate for production shortfalls, and have few, if any coping strategies in reserve to draw upon in food crises. In addition, those activities sometimes described as coping strategies were also affected by the drought. For example, per capita amounts of wild foods collected were less than normal due to reduced rainfall and increased numbers of people collecting them. Similarly, food gifts were reduced compared with normal; the drought also affected other villagers and urban relatives. Accordingly, villagers responses to the 1992 drought almost all involved modifications of existing food sourcing patterns, income patterns and expenditure patterns. Coping strategies + drought relief/ffw projects (which generally provided 15-25% of staple food for the poorest households) were insufficient to compensate for harvest losses. Therefore purchases increased in most households, especially in poor households, which had even smaller harvests in 1992 than wealthier households, and no stocks from the 1991 harvest.

3 3 Villagers financed these increased purchases in 2 main ways a) they attempted to increase their incomes. However, drought cut their income from water-dependent sources (such as beer brewing, brick-making and vegetable production), and poverty denied the poorest villagers access to other more profitable and less harmful sources of income/money. The combination of drought and poverty forced the poorest to intensify income-generating activities with damaging consequences: for instance, sales of wood (some of which came from live trees) and livestock; a few very poor people sold household and production assets; commercial sex and theft also increased. b) their poverty (the poorest households had no savings) forced them to cut expenditure on education, health and agricultural inputs, as well as on other less essential items. Children in the poorest families dropped out of school, and fewer girls than boys alter returned. Again, these market-mediated interactions were asymmetric: wealthier households did not need to engage in destructive or dangerous or extremely labour intensive income-generating activities to the same extent as poor households, nor did they cut expenditure on services to the same extent. Some of the consequences of these drought responses were medium or long term. Even though the rains which followed the drought were greater than average; poorer farmers planted smaller areas and thus had smaller post-drought harvests than expected: - food shortages forced them to work any from their own land for even longer than usual, for cash or food, on richer farmers land or in income generating activities or in food for work projects - cattle sales and deaths left poorer cattle owners (those with only a few cattle) with no draft animals after the drought; in the short-term they had to cultivate by hand (some pulled ploughs themselves); it took some many years to restock, others had not restocked 9 years later. 4/ Poverty amplified the harmful effects of the 1992 drought, which in turn worsened poverty, especially for the poorest households a) poverty amplified the harmful effects of the 1992 drought on livelihoods: Poor rural people have smaller harvests, fewer assets, less income and more limited social support networks than wealthier people. Most importantly, they have fewer effective and sustainable opportunities to earn sufficient income to meet their basic needs. Poverty denies poor people access to more profitable and less harmful sources of money (for instance, formal employment, enterprises requiring capital). During the 1992 drought it forced poor people to engage in various combinations of income-generating activities which compromised their livelihoods (cattle sales, tree-felling, working on richer farmers land for longer than usual). Some also cut expenditure on education, health and agricultural inputs, thereby compromising their own and their children's future livelihoods. b) the 1992 drought worsened poverty, especially for the poorest households Many smallholders who had a few cattle before the drought had none left in 1993, due largely to deaths from shortages of water and graze, and in some case disease; and to a lesser extent due to distress sales. Large increases in cattle prices after the drought (due to reduced supply & increased demand) meant that it took several years before they were able to re-stock, and some remained with no cattle 9 years later In addition, the post-drought harvests of many poor farmers in 1993 were lower than average, for the reasons described above (Section 3, last paragraph). They therefore had to work off their own land for even longer than usual in the second post-drought planting season, again reducing their harvests below expected levels. 5/ Economic inequities resulted in differential access to institutional relief and rehabilitation programmes, and increased in 1992 a) Economic inequities resulted in differential access to institutional programmes Some richer villagers captured a disproportionate share of the benefits of food or agricultural input distributions, either because they were on the local relief committee, or because they had good relations with local government officers (there were several cases in 1992 of villagers cooking meals for, or giving chickens to, local government officers, who then gave them higher rations or part of the share-out of the left-overs from the main distribution (which were sometimes deliberately held back).

4 4 b) Economic inequities may be worsened by crises The responses of poor people to the 1992 drought worsened economic inequities, as well as increasing poverty. Livestock sales by poor villagers to richer people, to finance increased purchases of food, were a common example of this process, which also occurred with sales of other assets. In Malawi in 1992, one villager collected several bicycles from poorer villagers who had been forced to sell them at low prices; they were later unable to buy them back at the higher price he was charging after the drought. 6/ The drought exacerbated seasonal variations to deepen the poverty of poor smallholders Many aspects of rural life have seasonal rhythms. Some of these variations contribute, through market transmission mechanisms, to the continuing poverty of many deficit producers (whose gross harvests - before any sales - last less than 12 months) and to the relative wealth of some surplus producers. Grain prices are low after harvest, when poor farmers sell part of their crop to finance lumpy expenditure such as school fees. They rise in the pre-harvest hungry months, when the same poor farmers now have to buy maize-meal, often from wealthier farmers. One way in which food crises tend to worsen these imbalances is by exacerbating normal seasonal variations and by adding others. Two or more sets of these variations interacted through market processes, which have a multiplier effect. Cattle deaths increased dramatically during the 1992 drought, and then declined. The peak period for cattle deaths varied: in much of southern Zimbabwe it was between March and August, due largely to shortages of graze and water. In parts of Zambia it occurred before the drought, due to an outbreak of corridor disease. Cattle prices correspondingly collapsed, to around 20% of their pre-drought levels in some areas, by mid These large price falls, coupled with substantial drought-induced rises in the price of maize-meal, meant that the sale of a cow in mid-drought could only buy 10-20% as much maize-meal in as before the drought. Smaller falls in goat prices had similar, but lesser, effects. Towards the end of the drought cattle prices began to rise, due to supply shortages, and by mid-1993 they were substantially higher than pre-drought levels in many areas, so poor farmers who had lost all their herds (due to death or sales or both) could not afford to restock. Again, the consequences were asymmetric: wealthier smallholders lost more cattle in absolute terms, but at the end of the drought poor villagers who had lost smaller numbers but were left with none were relatively worse off: they now had no cattle for ploughing, and most therefore had smaller harvests than they otherwise would have had. A further example of how drought exacerbates a seasonal variation to deepen the poverty of poor smallholders and widen rural inequities was the need, described above, for some deficit producers to work off their own land to earn grain, or cash to buy maize-meal, for even longer than usual in late This also contributed to smaller harvest than they otherwise would have had. Women 7. The varying contributions and needs of different population sub-groups Drought imposes additional burdens on women. In mid-1992, when their usual water points dried up, women spent up to seven hours a day fetching water; they sometimes left home at around 2am and returned in midmorning. They spent more time searching for wild foods and attempting to earn money to finance increased purchases of maize-meal. However, these increased investments of time often yielded fewer returns than in 1991: wild foods were also affected by drought, and there was reduced demand for the baskets, vegetables and other items they tried to sell. Women comprised the majority of workers on food for work projects. Women also reduced their food consumption to a greater extent than men, to try to ensure that their children had enough to eat.

5 5 Children Children are conventionally portrayed as passive victims of drought and other disasters. These images derive from extreme cases, when drought develops into famine - usually amid conflict - and when the most accessible families are those in camps, where measles, diarrhoea and other diseases kill disproportionately high numbers of children. But the 1992 drought, in common with most droughts, did not result in famine, largely as a result of the efforts of those whom it most affected. Children, far from being helpless dependents on adults or on supplementary feeding programmes, made substantial contributions to their families livelihoods. They helped their mothers fetch water, they gathered wild foods, they took cattle and goats in search of water and graze, and some earned small amounts of cash from petty trade. A few children, especially in female-headed households, substituted for their parents in food for work projects. A relatively small number of children dropped out of school, temporarily or permanently, either because their families needed them as workers, or because their parents could not afford the various fees and levies. Fewer girls returned to school than boys. Other population sub-groups Ethnic minorities (and/or supporters of opposition political parties) may be given less food and other relief and rehabilitation items than ethnic majority groups (in Zimbabwe a disproportionate large mount of maize was distributed to the 3 Mashonaland provinces in the first months of the 1992 drought relief operation; these provinces were less affected by the drought than Masvingo and the two Matabeleland Provinces in the south of the country). People with HIV/AIDS need special attention: while many remain active contributors to household livelihoods, the contributions of an increasingly large number are diminishing. Older people are often overlooked, especially by those planning relief programmes. They should be taken into account, not just for their particular needs, but also for their knowledge of previous disasters. The special needs and contributions of disabled people are similarly overlooked. 8. Information Those most affected by the 1992 drought often knew least about changes in market conditions and about programmes designed to help them. The focus on early warning systems (which, when they produce reasonably accurate and timely information, are often not acted on) can obscure the value of information during (and after) drought, especially for the poorest households. They generally receive less information, and less accurate and later information, than wealthier rural households and towndwellers. These information deficiencies had opportunity costs in Poor households, and villagers in relatively remote locations, received little or late information about market changes (where maize-meal was available, and at what price), which meant they spent many hours, and sometimes days, waiting to buy maize-meal. There was also inadequate information about distributions of relief food and agricultural inputs, and about other benefits (for example, exemptions from school fees). Conclusion Drought most obviously affects harvests and water sources, but it also triggers an interacting series of changes in markets, prices, expenditure and income patterns which are equally profound. In the 1992 Southern African drought these changes varied according to location, season, gender and relative wealth. They reflected the interaction of the physical impacts of drought (on water supplies, crops, vegetables, wild foods and natural resources) with its economic impacts. These economic impacts in turn interacted with villagers' attempts to obtain food while preserving their subsistence base, attempts which comprised most of the overall response to drought. These interactions helped prevent famine in the short term, at the cost of compromising longer-term livelihood security, especially for the poorest rural households. The 1992 relief and rehabilitation programme was a success, within the limits of conventional emergency programmes, as noted in the introduction. In a broader sense, though, the institutional responses to the 1992 drought illustrated a double deficiency of most of the food relief programmes of the last two decades: a failure to adequately involve those people most affected by emergencies in these programmes, and a failure to adequately address the adverse impacts of changes in market processes on household livelihood security during food crises.

6 6 Despite the passage of over 20 years since Sen emphasised the role of entitlement collapse in famines, most drought relief programmes have focused on the supply of food without addressing the demand problems which drought also creates. A number of the recommendations for drought mitigation, relief and rehabilitation programmes which emerged from this study concerned demand issues. The rationale for those recommendations is summarised in the paper entitled Protecting villagers purchasing power during food crises: rationale. These recommendations include: subsidising less desirable cereals, to reduce the likelihood that villagers will cut expenditure on essentials; waiving fees; stabilising livestock prices; establishing cereal intervention stocks, which could be released when local market prices rise beyond a certain level; and cash for work programmes. Some of these interventions could be targeted using vouchers. These and other recommendations are summarised in the paper entitled Some recommendations for relief and rehabilitation programmes during and after food crises in southern Africa. This paper is based on the findings of a participatory study (with 936 households in 72 villages in Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe) of how smallholders responded to the 1992 drought. Christopher Eldridge 11 July 2002 Formerly head of Save The Children-UK s Regional Office for Southern Africa ( ) Current (July 2002): chris@helpageasia.com Personal christophereldridge@yahoo.co.uk Fax: or Office phone numbers: or or or ( am GMT Monday-Friday) Also contact: Andrew Timpson Save The Children UK Regional Emergencies Adviser for Southern Africa atimpson@scfuk.org.za Fax: File: NO FAMINE 2 CONSEQUENCES Eldridge 11 July