English LanguageComprehension and summaryJAMB

When the rains failed for the third year running, the farmers of Dambatta did not wait for help from the city. Malam Sani, who had kept bees for twenty years, called a meeting under the neem tree beside the market. He reminded the farmers that the river still flowed in the dry season, though it lay two kilometres from most of their plots. Pumping water that far with diesel engines had always been too costly; the fuel alone swallowed whatever profit the harvest brought. This time the farmers pooled their savings and bought four solar pumps. The first months were difficult. Two pumps broke down because no one had been trained to clean the panels, and some members grumbled that their money had been wasted. Yet by the end of the season, the cooperative had harvested more tomatoes than in any year anyone could remember. Traders from Kano came to buy directly from them, and the farmers no longer had to accept whatever price the middlemen offered. Malam Sani refused to take credit. 'The sun was always here,' he said. 'We only learnt to work with it.'

Malam Sani's final remark suggests that he believed the success came from

An AdmitMe practice question, written for the JAMB syllabus. Not an official past question.