Most families in southern Africa are subsistence farmers. This means they

grow what they eat and eat what they grow. If it rains too much or too little, or

something else goes wrong with the harvest, families will go hungry because

the food has run out. Southern Africa has no system to pay benefits to people

who are struggling similar to that which we have in this country.

The main crop for farmers in southern Africa is maize, which we call sweet

corn. When the crop is harvested it is dried in the sun and then the corn is

removed from the cob and pounded into flour by hand. The maize flour is

cooked in water to make nshima (pronounced nsheema), which looks and

feels a bit like porridge. Harvest Help can provide a recipe if you would like to

try making it. Nshima is eaten nearly every day, often with a ‘relish’ of

vegetables. These vegetables are also grown on the farm, and include

groundnuts (peanuts), pumpkin leaves, sweet and Irish potatoes (Irish

potatoes are the same as our potatoes).

Other crops grown for food include millet and sorghum, cassava, rice and

tomatoes as well as spices such as garlic and paprika. For a treat, children

are sometimes given a length of sugar cane to take on their journey to school.

The bark is peeled off and the sweet juice inside sucked out. Puddings,

sweets and snacks can be found in towns but not in villages.

Richer farmers keep chickens for eggs and goats for milk, but most people

almost never eat meat and only drink water with perhaps a little home made

beer or a bottle of coca cola on special occasions like Christmas day.

This is a very healthy diet, providing there is enough food to go round, but

would seem very boring to us in the UK because we are not used to eating

the same thing every day. People in southern Africa would also find our diet

very strange. For example, there is a Zambian saying:

You can find out more about the farmers and the crops they grow, as well as

pictures and maps, on the Harvest Help web site. Go to www.harvesthelp.org