Time for tea -- a landcare success story

29-Aug-2003: By GUY ROGERS at the 6th Conference of the Parties to the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) in Havana, Cuba --

A SOUTH African small-scale organic tea farming project is being held up here as an excellent example of how communities can prevent land degradation and at the same time create sustainable livelihoods.

The Heiveld Organic Rooibos Tea Farming Project in the remote Northern Cape community of Suid Bokkeveld was also the key example presentation in a session yesterday focused on a milestone new global initiative facilitating the exchange of indigenous knowledge by communities. The presentation, by Environmental Monitoring Group (EMG) representative Noel Oettle, was warmly received by delegates in a packed hall here at the Palacio des Convenciones.

Emphasising the leading role taken by the community itself, with the support of government and an array of local and international partnership organisations , he said his organisation had become involved with the Suid Bokkeveld in 1998 following a call by the agriculture department for assistance.

“The government was wanting to find ways to uplift the community, which was very poor, and located in a very harsh environmental zone, with baking heat and severe frost. They had been consistently marginalised first in the colonial era and then by apartheid and there were issues of confidence and competance that had to be overcome.”

The small Suid Bokkeveld is part of a not much bigger region, stretching from Niewoudtville in the Northern Cape to Citrusdal in the Western Cape, the only place in the world where rooibos grows. Reliant on poorly paid labourer work on the farms as well as small sheep and goat herds to supplement their incomes, the community had for generations been harvesting wild rooibos, a species of fynbos, for their own needs for their own sustenance and medicinal needs. Some efforts had been made to create to create a wider market but this had faltered with deregulation and the depression of prices.

“The question was how could the community benefit from this resource beyond the marginal incomes they had been earning? How could improvement come about on a sustainable basis?”

The Wuppertahl commmunity, 100km to the south, had achieved some success in marketing their tea, several other Namaqaland towns had successfully launched ecotourism businesses and, as a starting point, the Suid Bokkeveld community wanted to find out if these were viable options.

The EMG submitted a proposal on their behalf to the funding body of the UNCCD, the Global Mechanism and, finding support in terms of its new community to community (C2C) exchange and training programme, the ground-breaking visits were successfully organised in 2000.

Full of new energy and ideas, the community returned and set about establishing the Heiveld Co-operative, a collective tea processing facility, freeing them of dependence on the neighbouring large commercial farmers.

An even more important step was taken at the end of that year when discussions were initiated with the Dutch Fair Trade Organisatie, with the aim of obtaining a reliable market at premium prices. Oettle said this step was made possible by Heiveld’s own policy, formulated by its members, of contributing some of the future profits of the business to less advantaged members and social upliftment projects.

“It made sense to develop trading relations with partners that would help the co-op achieve social justice.”

Designed as a response to globalisation, Fair Trade relies on establishing sustained relationships between consumers and producers. By paying a better price and purchasing as directly as possible, consumers enable small scale producers to earn a good living and to pay fair wages.

It became clear that these prices would only be obtained if the tea was certified as organic but this fitted with the way things were being done already as pesticides and fertilisers were too expensive and, following an inspection of the farms and their books, the Heiveld farmers were all able to register as organic rooibos tea producers by the end of that same year. With this trademark of quality established, partnerships with three Fair Trade organisations in Europe have now been established and export volumes are increasing steadily.

Production got underway with processing machinary rented from a neighbouring commercial farmer. An application was made to the Canada Fund for Local Initiatives for funds for machinary and when the funds from Canada did arrive, they were also used to build a facility in which to station it. Water is needed for the production process and the design of the faciltity allows for water to be harvested from the roof and from the concrete tea court, where drying takes place.

Individual Heiveld Co-op farmers now earn R11.20 ($1.40) per kilogram, up from R2.40 ($0.30) in 1997.

Value was added to their product with a UN-funded booklet and distinctive packaging in the form of cotton bags produced by three packaging businesses run by groups of local women from their homes. This enterprise accrued R14 400 ($1.800) for them this year alone.

Capitalising on their success and their positioning as eco-farmers and supported by the EMG, members of the co-op have also formed a study group to tackle problems encountered in their work and to formulate suitable responses. A wider land care project has also been launched to tackle erosion. Stone pack technology is being used to stabilise dongas similar to the work being done by communities in the Katberg in the Eastern Cape and strips of natural veld are being kept in place as buttresses against the wind. The mosaic of these strips also serves to retain biodiversity and some of its benefits, including its role as a habitat for predators who keep down the pests that proliferate in cleared fields.

When subsistance rooibos tea first started in the Suid Bokkeveld, seeds were collected from a pioneer sub species in another region but now they are harvested from existing plantations. Hand-picking is used to ensure better quality tea and protection of the bushes, which in some cases have lasted 50 years.

As plantations of monocultures these ploughed field production still do attract some pests however. Use of pesticides was not acceptable so a new niche was identified of tea harvested from “wild rooibos”. Marketed as biodiversity friendly and socially just, the product has grabbed the attention of the delegates here and sales globally are set to grow, Oettle says.

Asked about the C2C and if communities could always be trusted or expected to share their knowledge, which might in turn undermine the success of their own businesses, Oettle told The Herald his experience was that farmers generally but especially poor farmers were always happy to do so. “It’s part of a gemeenskap thing, of the land and, in this case, of being poor.”

The summer rains and the different composition of Eastern Cape soil means it does not grow there, and Heiveld rooibos is also not yet available in Eastern Cape shops. The good news is you can order it by email from heiveld@indigo-dc.org

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