In the rural commune of Maintirano, agate mining has attracted entire families. In addition to the dangerous working conditions, stone miners are not free to negotiate the price of their finds. The system is also detrimental to the community, forcing local authorities to introduce contributions that weigh down the already modest salaries of stone miners.
Some 2,000 artisanal miners dig in Mafaijijo, a rural commune in Maintirano, famous for agate, a semi-precious agate stone. On the international market, 1kg of a well-presented, polished agate is valued at 1,350,000 Ariary. In the quarries of Mafaijijo, men brave danger and near death for a few agate stones.
Under the sun of Amboritry, a small village in the Maintirano district, Roland has been talking about his job for the past ten years: finding stones. This sixty-something man, rough around the edges, lively and energetic, embodies the very soul of his profession: “a dangerous job that’s not for the faint-hearted”. Roland heads up the small community of the Amboritry mining quarry, one of the five quarries in the rural commune of Mafaijijo, in the Melaky region.
20 m underground, unprotected
Roland is one of the site’s leading figures. He has brought his entire family into the business. ”I’m here, as is my wife, our three sons, who each have a wife, and my grandchildren, making a total of ten people who live from the stone under my roof. But other mining families have as many as 18 people,” she explains. Since the first veins were found in Mafaijijo, settlements of thousands of souls have sprung up around the quarries. In Amboritry, 721 families live in makeshift shacks. They come from various regions, more or less remote, attracted by the promise of agate stone. Men, women, young people and, above all, children who, in these quarries, are generally not enrolled in school. Season after season, however, their situation deteriorates. Twenty years ago, this stone was relatively easy to extract, but today you have to go further underground to find it. ”We use crowbars and shovels to dig into the ground and unearth the stones. With the help of cans, we bring the earth to the surface. Each hole dug goes down to 20m below ground”: very fragile tools, with no protection, for one of the most dangerous activities there is. Accidents are never far away: “Recently, at Antsoamaliniky, which is one of Mafaijijo’s quarries, three men were killed. The first fell into one of the holes. Then the earth collapsed and the other two also fell. We couldn’t save them. The doctors can’t even get to us,” confides Zafianaka, who has settled in Angeringedy.
Unfortunately, all this hard work doesn’t feed him. “We work hard to extract the stones that are bought from us at knock-down prices. I’m sure we’re being robbed, as we work ourselves to the bone. The collectors make a lot of money reselling the stones to the Chinese,” laments Paoly, who also works in the Angeringedy quarry. His colleague, Bien Christophe from Antsohamaliniky, is annoyed by the prices: “Today, we sell three kilos of agate for the price of two kilos, two kilos for the price of one kilo, and of course, the kilo is bought back at the price of small stones! I suspect these collectors are tampering with the springs in their scales, and we’re losing money because of this cheating! They buy a kilo of agate from us at 200 Ariary in the Antsohamaliniky quarry, whereas we go down to 20m underground to collect these stones!”
Market prices
In Maintirano, collectors and miners deny that they charge low prices. For their part, they consider their prices to be reasonable. “The intermediary operators between the miners and the exporters charge between 1,000 and 3,000 Ariary per kilo,” explains Ando. Ando is one of these intermediaries: the young woman selects the stones and buys them from the operators in the quarries.
“The price of agate depends on the size and quality of each stone. A poor-quality stone is bought at a low price. For ordinary agate, when it leaves the quarries, the collector buys it at between 1,000 and 1,500 Ariary per kilo for pieces weighing at least three kilos. When it arrives in Maintirano, it is bought back at 2,400 or even 3,000 Ariary, depending on the quality of the stone. For example, a white flower agate is worth between 3,000 and 4,000 Ariary at the quarry. We take it back at 4,500 Ariary. For red flower agate, collectors take them for between 15,000 and 1,8000 Ariary a kilo for pieces weighing over three kilos. Once it arrives here, the stone will be sold for between 1,9000 and 20,000 Ariary per kilo”.
If Ando knows so much about agate market prices, it’s because she is one of the representatives of operators based in Maintirano. In fact, Ando acts on behalf of Chinese operators, as stone collector, translator and intermediary with artisanal operators. The Chinese remain as inaccessible as they are silent: we won’t have the opportunity to meet them.
Inaccessible operators
But we’re not the only ones who can’t get close to these Chinese nationals who are the main buyers of stone in Maintirano: it’s a possibility that’s also denied to the artisanal operators in the quarries. “Apparently, they don’t come down to the field to meet us,” explains Roland, from Amboritry, “They employ Malagasies to negotiate on their behalf. These Malagasies come to us with the money and the trade is done directly between us”. But the stone seekers also reveal the hindrance they face: “We farmers are not allowed to communicate directly with these foreigners who buy our stones. The collectors prevent us from doing so. All we know is that, for example, these Chinese operators could buy our beautiful stones for up to 20,000 or even 30,000 Ariary a kilo”.
To prevent farmers from dealing directly with foreigners, the collectors, known to the villagers as “the bosses”, would spare no expense. Bien Christophe is indignant: “If they catch us transporting our stones directly to town, they force us to pay 2,00,000 to 300,000 Ariary at least for the right to take our products as far as Maintirano”. It’s impossible for these farmers to organize such a trip.
99% illegal operators
Some 2,000 Malagasy and Chinese miners are present in Maintirano. But 99% of them are illegal, as they do not have mining permits. In the Antsohamaliniky fokontany, for example, four mining permits have been granted, according to information gathered from the Bureau du cadastre minier de Madagascar (BCMM): two to major mining companies and two to artisanal miners. All four permits expired between 2009 and 2018. Of these four permits, only one was for agate mining in and around Antsohamaliniky, while the other three were for malachite, jasper and carnelian. This situation is not without handicaps for the local authorities, who are unable to benefit from these sources of revenue provided for by law. In fact, according to law no. 99-022 of August 19, 1999 on the Mining Code, 2% of the price of the first sale of products is earmarked for payment of mining royalties (0.6%) and rebates (1.4%), with the sales invoice serving as proof.
Tsiry Antenaina Ralidera, Regional Director of Mahajanga, which looks after the four regions encompassed by this former province, explains the distribution. “Previously, of the 2% of the sale price, 60% went to the Commune, 30% to the Region and 10% to the Autonomous Province. Today, there is a new breakdown, still based on this 2% of the selling price: 60% goes to the Commune and 39% to the Region”.
Tickets and contributions
So, what do artisanal agate mining and trading bring to the community, if the majority of operators are informal and illegal? Not much, as long as they remain informal. And as the budgets earmarked by the central government for the Communes and the Region are slow to arrive, the latter have set up a “local contribution system”. At regional level, the administration has chosen not to force smallholders to formalize yet, preferring instead to turn to the collectors. Acting Regional Manager Rasolofonirina Jean-Baptiste explains: “We’ve let the smallholders collect the stones for the time being. But the collectors now have to formalize their operations with the mining office and the BCMM in Mahajanga, as we are now mobilizing to ensure that these operators are in order, and hold a permit in due and proper form”. Nevertheless, the Melaky Region recovers 100 Ariary per kilo sold: “These mining fees are set at 100 Ariary, in line with the fact that market rates are quite high. From our point of view, if there are so many people getting involved in mining, it’s because there’s money to be made”, comments Ralaisabotsy Antonio, Development Director for the Melaky Region.
At commune level, another organization has been set up: small operators must pay a ticket of 1,000 Ariary per day to the commune. ”We brought together all the quarry operators. We consulted them to decide together on their contributions to the commune’s development. It was agreed that each operator must pay 30,000 Ariary per month, at a rate of 1,000 Ariary per day. This is a modest contribution, the equivalent of a market ticket. What’s more, this amount was validated by a joint deliberation”, explains Razafimamonjy Robert Eugène, deputy mayor of Mafaijijo. ”When luck smiles on you and you get your hands on some beautiful agate stones, you can earn millions of Ariary. That’s why so many Maintirano residents have flocked to these quarries. Raymond Avisoa, Secretary of the Civil Registry of the commune of Mafaijijo, lists the projects recently completed thanks to these contributions: “fences, the road, electricity, and a dam currently under construction to water the plains of Mafaijijo, not to mention the security we’ve been able to restore”. The commune of Mafaijijo sees itself as a visionary: “the day the agate vein dies out, we’ll have infrastructures ready for agriculture, to which artisanal farmers will be able to convert”, projects deputy mayor Razafimamonjy.
Grumbling from smallholders
Among the quarry campagnons, these measures are not necessarily viewed favorably. ”There are the prices you hear in Maintirano and the prices we see here, in the quarries. Small stones weighing less than three kilos are bought from us at 200 Ariary or even 500 Ariary a kilo. After spending hours underground, risking our lives, we’re still being charged 100 Ariary per kilo? exclaims Rasoa, a mother who has settled in the Antsohamaliniky quarry. In Angeringedy, Zafianaka is bitter: “They ask us to pay 1,000 Ariary a day in dues. But you know, we sometimes spend days without touching a single usable stone…”.
The difficulties encountered by the Region and the Communes in collecting royalties and rebates on a regular basis have led to plans to set up a future Mining Administration Office (BAM) and a regional branch of the ministry in Maintirano. Formalizing these thousands of farmers is no mean feat, but it’s a necessary step to clean up the sector, where corruption, manipulation and insecurity reign daily. In the shade of his Amboritry hut, Roland ponders their uncertain future. For these unlicensed operators, conversion is out of the question, despite their illegal status. Even though their living and working conditions are extremely harsh, they are all determined to keep on digging, in the hope of stumbling across a stone that will change their lives. For this population, the Maintirano quarries are like salvation: “This quarry is an opportunity for us to improve our living conditions. I can’t even imagine where we’d be if this quarry hadn’t existed. We no longer have any cattle; our rice fields have dried up. This is our last hope,” Roland sums up.
Cover photo source: https://mineralsweet.com/
