Mabokang's story


The seeds were new maize varieties – Kalahari Early Pearl (KEP), Sahara and Nelson’s Choice. They were made available through FARA’s DONATA project.

Letlapeng village chief Morena Shoaepane
observed that prior to the inception of the project, many of the villagers had virtually given up on farming because of the difficulty they had with land preparation and farm inputs. Worse, incidence of theft of farm produce was rampant, discouraging farmers from crop cultivation. The project interventions, which included both land preparation and input supply, enabled more farmers to return to cultivation, and as a consequence theft of farm produce has reduced.


The results? According to Mabokang, her maize yield was 30% higher than last season. And as for the current season, she was sure of about 40-50% increase in outputs.

One of the most important benefits of the project was to support group farming. Prior to the project, individual farmers planted small plots ranging in size from 1.5 to 8 acres. But because the land preparation covered an area of over 155 acres (70.4 hectares), the number of farmers involved meant that a successful crop was far more likely. In the case of Letlapeng, Mabokang was joined by 95 other farmers. Her leadership and knowledge was recognised by her peers when they elected her to be their spokesperson at the DONATA Field Day held on 20 April.

Speaking for all the farmers of Letlapeng, Mabokang expressed appreciation for the project, which was empowering them to fight hunger and poverty as well as reducing the social tension that arises from theft of farm produce. She added that their dependence on food aid and handouts was gradually dwindling because their capacity to feed themselves has been enhanced. Another benefit of the project was that long trips to town to buy inputs were no longer necessary because the inputs were supplied through the DONATA intervention.

As the DAO put it, ‘Though Lesotho is poor, people are determined to fight the poverty by adopting the intervention of DONATA. Farmers want to work as a team and are prepared to support one another to fight poverty and hunger.’

The whole village turned out to welcome the DONATA delegation from FARA. The programme included singing and dancing by the village schoolchildren. While a group of 10-year-old boys performed a synchronised martial arts presentation, the girls poignantly sang We thank your organization DONATA… we could be slaves to hunger without you!