Yamiche Alcindor
20 June 2008
Gaborone — It is five in the morning and the sun is not yet out but Thankanyana Kelebogile Ellen Mosime is already up cleaning her home, doing the laundry, and making breakfast.
The scene, picked from Mosime's former life as a weekday bookkepper and typist, and a weekend crop farmer and cattle breeder, illustrates her drive to succeed.
The single mother struggled to build her own farm and buy her own cattle. Now, she is hoping to make a plea for other single women farmers to receive help from the government. She also hopes her words will bring single women farmers from all over Botswana together at a farmers' convention this Friday. The meeting is Assistant Minister of Agriculture Shaw Kgathi's initiative to see a united and one strong association.
"I've lived my life knowing you had to work all the time," Mosime said in a matter- of-fact tone. "I never had time to relax spiritually or physically. As a farmer I always have to be on my toes and as a woman it is difficult to know where you are going." She makes her home as a mother of one, a grandmother of two, and as an acting mother to many relatives' children. Like several of her countrymen and women, Mma Mosime regularly commutes between Kanye, the lands, and her cattle post. Being 30 km within Jwaneng it makes it easier for her to travel between the cattle-post and the lands without her own vehicle.
She began the projects in 1991 in preparation for her retirement. Her last job before retiring in 2005 was at the Southern District Council. Now a full-time farmer, Mma Mosime hopes to help other single mothers who may be struggling in Botswana.
Her message: the government should help single women farmers in several tasks that she believes put them at a disadvantage because of their gender. "A lot of female farmers are facing similar challenges," she said. "It is very painful as a woman to go into this kind of work."
She explained that there are both challenges in crop farming and cattle breeding. Regarding crop production, Mosime points to a lack of water, mechanisms of soil inspection, and community family operatives. She hopes the government could help solve some of the problems by setting up initiatives geared toward single women farmers that will include the government drilling boreholes for water on farms, as well as providing inspections of the soil's PH value, which affects the quality of the crop.
She also pointed to a South African system, which used to be run by the government, whereby women registered their harvest and had their land ploughed and in turn gave some of the finished products to those who worked on ploughing. She said if brought to Botswana, the project would help many women.
She also suggested having government land devoted to single women farmers as a cooperative whereby they would share the workload as well as proceeds from farm produce sales.
Regarding cattle raising, Mosime said a similar sharing could be put in place whereby fenced land could be given to single women cattle owners. In this way, boreholes and fences would provide cattle with drinking water and keep them from straying. As a farmer of staple food and owner of cattle, she began life in a modest home in Kanye at Goo Kgano ward. While still in her early teens, Mosime's parents, content with the fact that their eldest daughter could write, pulled her out of school and put her to work on their farm.
The teenager did not mind though, but really preferred to be in school. As she recalled, she had an interest in agriculture from a young age. She remembers first understanding the importance of cows when her younger sister, unable to drink breast milk, was assigned a cow from which she could get her milk.
"I was fascinated by cattle," she said. "I loved it [farming]. It was just the passion of farming. As a Motswana in culture, I thought I should be doing it," she said. Her family usually ate what they grew. When that was not enough, young Mosime would work for other families with large harvests to get food in return for her work.
At the age of around 16, Mosime went across the border to work for white South African farmers sorting peanuts.
Mosime then began work on a Boer farm. After receiving payment in bags of maize, Mosime returned home using most of her funds to put herself through school. She started at Standard Two. She continued on until finally leaving for good after Standard Seven.
She then did further training in bookkeeping and typing during which time she began working for several government councils.
After securing a loan and being allotted land by the Land Board, Mosime was able to begin ploughing a small plot of land as well as purchase 15 cows and a bull in preparation for her 2005 retirement away from the office. Over time, Mosime says she had to contend with several obstacles which threatened her farming. One was balancing work in the office with work on the farm.
Another was the commute to her lands when not using her daughter's vehicle. Mosime would have to take a public bus from Kanye to outside Jwaneng to walk some 10 km off the road to reach her lands. But she didn't mind. "It wasn't a big deal to work over the weekend," she said. "It didn't matter when I knocked off on Friday because I knew I would still be working."
One incident which stands out in her mind was the time when a group of baboons attacked her crop (of melon) and were unafraid of her because she was a woman. As Mosime explained, the animals know the difference in gender among humans and are only afraid of men, whom they associate with aggressive behavior.
She also said having to haul large loads after harvests as well as making farm repairs such as a torn down fence is harder for single women.
"You have to pay someone to do this kind of work," she said. In regards to male farmers, Mosime said: "Men don't undermine me but they understand my challenges." She hopes her life will encourage other women to take greater interest in farming. Today the Botswana Farmer's Association is holding a meeting and Mosime hopes her fellow single female farmers will unite there.
As for the government, Mosime said there are certain farms that are about to be allocated to the public. She said she is pleading with the government to consider her requests.
"By allocating these farms, the government would be empowering women," said Mosime.
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