Chapter 4 Figure 4.1
4.8 The problem of labour migration in Mapholaneng Catchment
construction of the tarred road also led to increased groups of youngsters and adult persons roaming about the catchment area as they had failed to procure employment from the construction work. Thus, the unplanned and unregulated incipient urbanization in Mapholaneng has resulted in increasing social problems relating to house-breaking, theft, robbery and crime which have currently characterised the urban villages of Motete,Meketeng, Mafikalisiu and Majakaneng.
The other two events which have also led to the increasing unemployment of the catchment labour force in Mapholaneng are:
the completion of the tarred road in late 1997;
ii and the dwindling business trade in the catchment, due to the shrinking local market for road labourers and diminished income sources resulting from the increased rate of migrant labourers' retrenchment from the mines of South Africa.
101 in the mines for long years and therefore have not been available to perform their domestic household duties including mending houses, household equipment repairs, the socialization of offspring, cultural ordeals and farming activities. However in some cases, outside labour was hired to perform such duties and paid with migrant labour wages. In other words, even though household migrant members did not perform household activities in person, they provided the income to bring such activities into fruition. In such cases, labour migration has thus, been of importance in generating local employment in the catchment.
By the 1980's, there were hardly three families out of ten from which someone had not migrated to the mines for employment in South Africa from Mapholaneng catchment.
Thus, migrant labour had become a deeply entrenched source of supplementary income to many households in Mapholaneng. However, to the relatively poor households, migrant wages had become the only major source sustaining household subsistence and investment in livestock production (Quinlan,1989). The long history of labour migration in Mapholaneng had generated a doctrine among the catchment youths and parents that better future job-opportunities lay in the migrant labour system to South Africa. This inborn positive attitudes towards labour migration by the youths in Mapholaneng, especially among the boys, has had the effect of discouraging boys from completing formal schooling since labour migration was not seen as academic or literacy dependent. Reasons that have precipitated labour migration from Mapholaneng have already been discussed in Chapter Two above. However, as I have indicated earlier in this thesis, it has never been every household that has had someone working as a migrant. The study of five villages in Mapholaneng has shown thatka substantial number of~households have had no migrant labourers in§outh
"'-"
Africa. On the one hand, while some households have had someone working as local
1\
migrant within Lesotho such as a civil servant working in the town, on the other hand, other households have had no one involved in labour migration at all. For example in the rural Villages of Khukhune and Tiping in particular, the majority of households have had no labour migration history neither anywhere in Lesotho nor in South Africa (non- migrant households). Table 4.1 is drawn to depict the differences in the number of both
migrant and non-migrant households in all eleven relatively larger villages constituting Mapholaneng catchment. From this table, it is observed that a larger percentage of non-migrant households is from the relatively rural and remote villages in upper Mapholaneng in Khukhune (62%), and Tiping (64 %). These villages are very remote and as such, they are still more traditional in their socio-economic practices than those in lower Mapholaneng where elements of western values are gradually eradicating traditional values. In fact, in these remote rural villages, ties of people with the resources of the countryside has still remained substantially central to the day to day subsistence of the households. A large percentage of migrant households is from the relatively urban village in Lower Mapholaneng and in villages such as Motete (68%) and Meketeng (70% ).
Table 4.1: Migrant and Non-Migrant households in the sub-village of Mapholaneng catchment in Eastern Lesotho-1998-99.
Khukhune 15 38 25 62 40
Mafikalisiu 10 37 17 63 27
Makalieng 10 67 5 33 15
Malothoaneng 20 57 15 43 35
Matsoiring 22 69 10 31 32
Meketeng 37 70 16 30 53
Motete 92 68 43 32 13
5
Polomiti 39 76 12 24 51
Teu 29 55 24 45 53
Tiping 34 36 61 64 95
Tsieng 21 68 10 32
Source: Author's data supplied by headmen (April- July, 1998).
103
4.9 The structure of Lesotho's economy
Lesotho has been known through historical periods as a agricultural country practising both crop cultivation and animal husbandry. In fact, agriculture has been regarded as the backbone of the country's economy for the last 100 years.
4.9.1 Crop cultivation:
Lesotho has often been described as an agricultural economy for the reason that, agriculture used to employ 85% of the resident Lesotho labour force. However, recent records indicate that the domestic production of major grain crops of maize, wheat and sorghum has been falling drastically to the present levels by which the country is unable to feed itself from its agricultural base. In fact, Lesotho is said to have shifted from self-sufficiency in food production to the present condition of total impoverishment and dependence on foreign donation and importation of both basic staple grain food items and vegetables such as cabbage and potatoes (Murray, 1981 ) . Table 4.2, reflects the food production dilemma of the agricultural base of Lesotho, and depicts historical changes of domestic decline in agricultural production during the period 1974 to 1988.
In order to maintain the basic subsistence of her people, Lesotho is currently and without any choice, dependent on the imports of food grains such as wheat, maize, sorghum and other non-agricultural materials from her neighbour, South Africa.
Agriculture has continued to feed most of the Basotho people and has also been a major contributor to the Lesotho's gross domestic product (GDP). For instance, according to Mcleod, in 1977/78, agriculture in order of crop cultivation and livestock contributed M 28.8 million and M 22.6 million respectively to the total gross domestic product at that period (Mcleod,1995). In addition, in 1985, Lesotho Government records showed that agriculture alone contributed 26% or M142.4 million to the GDP as a result of the increases in the production of staple food grains of maize wheat and sorghum (Kingdom of Lesotho, 1987).
Table 4.2: Lesotho's imports and domestic production of major food crops in thousands of tones: 1974/75 - 1986/87
CROP- IMPORTS DOMESTIC PRODUCTION
32.4 5.1 0.3 70.3 45.3 37.4
SO.8 5.8 0.8 49.1 44.6 24.5
36.8 1.9 0.8 125.0 61.4 62.3
32.1 1.8 0.9 143.2 57.9 85.8
38.4 1.4 1.2 124.9 33.6 00.0
37.7 1.0 1.0 105.6 28.2 59.3
~.3 3.3 1.2 105.7 17.0 47.7
33.3 1.3 1.3 79.8 14.5 26.0
52.4 1.0 1.8 76.2 14.8 ~.7
58.6 1.0 1.8 79.4 17.1 33.8
62.7 1.0 2.3 92.4 18.4 54.8
63.0 1.0 2.3 86.5 11.0 33.6
SQURCE:Lesotho Agricultural situation reports, 1984 & 1986 editions.(After, Nqgaleni in Santho and Sejanamane, 1990: 128-29).
Various contextual reasons have been commonly advanced to account for the historical decline in agricultural yields as indicated in Table 4.2 .
o
Conditions of soil for cultivationIn Lesotho, recently soils became poor and infertile or exhausted as a result of long centuries of continuous cultivation without fertilizing the soil, as a result of the traditional practices of monoculture and of using animal manure as firewood for household requirements.
o
Increase in population growthThe recent increases in population growth is a factor which has commonly been considered responsible for the shortage of virgin farming land and which, in turn, has led to the cultivation of hill slopes and marginal lands, contributing to the conditions of land degradation and of rural-urban migration.
105 Long period of absence of men
In most instances, the absence of men as valuable household labour power, for long periods of mine work in South Africa, had also been critically considered an issue associated with the decline in agricultural yields. This issue has currently become very controversial among the academics. The related debate on the issues are discussed at length, elsewhere in this thesis.
o
Soil erosionBoth naturally and humanly induced aspects of soil-degradation such as in the case of wide scenes of sheet and gully erosion throughout the country have been documented to have contributed a major role in the current decline of agricultural yields in the country.
o
Lack of funds to finance agricultural purchases of farming technology and to reduce illiteracy among farmers. Most rural farmers are poor to raise funds to improve agricultural production.4.9.2 Livestock farming
In Lesotho most farmers who historically cultivated fields also kept a certain number of livestock, hence crop farming and animal husbandry were never inseparable among the traditional Basotho farmers.
The practice of animal husbandry usually involved the rearing of both small and larger domestic animals like cattle, horses and donkeys or mules, while the small stock consisted of sheep and goats. As elsewhere amongst the Bantu people in Southern Africa, through historical times, livestock has been regarded as a symbol of wealth and of social status by the Basotho who have historically valued livestock quantitatively rather than qualitatively. The topography of Lesotho is mostly suited to livestock farming, but documentation and real life experience in the country reveals that the physical number of livestock owned by the farmers has been double the carrying capacity of the pastures. As a result, it is strongly argued that several generations of continuous overstocking of the rangeland throughout the country has culminated in the current conditions of the pasture's deterioration (Ambrose, 1976, Mcleod,1995,
Perry, 1983). Angora goats and merino sheep are mostly reared and encouraged for their wool which form a major export component of Lesotho's trade to the outside world, through South Africa. Furthermore, and in order to maintain the livestock breeds, selected breeding places have long been established in the eastern district of Mokhotlong and Qachasneck, where most of the best livestock is produced.
o
Livestock graze in the mountains in summer and in the lowlands pastures in winter, practising the farming process of transhumance.o
The lack of winter grazing and absence of fodder-crops constitute a major problem leading to weakened draught animals for sustaining ploughing, hence contributing to the poor types of farming practices by poor peasants.4.9.3 Mining and Manufacturing
Diamonds are the only minerals of economic importance in Lesotho, occurring in Liqhobong, Kao, Lemphane and LetsWeng la Trai mining areas. The mine in LetsWeng la Trai was formerly opened in 1977 but had to close down in 1982 due to then unfavourable world prices. Presently the provision of basic infrastructure of housing, roads, fencing and electricity supply is underway for the re-opening of the mine. Even though it is not exactly clear as when the mine will be re-opened, it is hoped that some of the retrenched mine workers from the mines of South Africa will be employed.
However, the employment of the ex-migrants will depend on the relevance of their skills and experience to the diamond mining requirements in Lesotho, which are different to coal and gold mining. The potential for employment of retrenched migrant mineworkers is therefore not considered good.
Manufacturing in Lesotho is poorly developed and consists mainly of textile and clothing industries which are promoted by the Lesotho National Development Corporation (LNDC) and the Basotho Enterprises Development Corporation (BEDCO) both of which are run and controlled by foreign private companies from South Africa and Asian countries. Opportunities for the employment of retrenched migrant workers is considered very limited, particularly as employment in these industries is mainly focussed on female labour and wages are relatively lower than those expected by the ex-migrants, who have been used to higher wages on the mines.
107 CHAPTERS
5. ANALYSIS OF QUESTIONNAIRE SURVEY DATA