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Women Farmers and Climate Change in West Africa

By: Dioma Komonsira

Already weakened by gender inequalities and socio-cultural norms, women farmers in West Africa face new challenges in the context of climate change. Due to the dependence of West African agriculture on rainfall, extreme weather events such as prolonged droughts, flash floods, and bushfires are becoming more frequent in the region and have a direct impact on harvests and, by extension, on the food security of farming households, especially women. Difficult access to water, arable land, and financing makes them particularly vulnerable. It exposes them to economic, food, and nutritional insecurity with multiple consequences.

However, there are encouraging initiatives on the ground, from the mobilization of women to face the impact of climate change on their activities and living conditions to the support of partners.

Women farmers and climate change in West Africa

Women hold a significant role in agriculture in West Africa

They often represent the majority of the agricultural labor force in almost all countries in the region. Some countries, such as Mali, represent 65.3% of the agricultural workforce, 76.1% in Burkina Faso, 68.9% in Niger and 36.4% in Ghana (Sources FAO, 2021). In 2018, this proportion was 55.2% in Senegal according to the Direction de l’Analyse, de la Prospective et des Statistiques Agricoles (DAPSA) of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Equipment. In addition, they contribute a large part to food production in the region, including the production of food crops, livestock and the processing of agricultural products: about 80% of foodstuffs (United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, 2020) or 70% of small ruminant herd ownership (FAO, 2022). When it comes to processing agricultural products, they play a central role as more than half of agribusinesses in West Africa are led by women (USAID, 2020).

Climate change has a negative impact on women farmers

This strong presence in the region’s agricultural activity is matched by their exposure to the effects of climate change. Overall, projections show that the impact of climate change could cost the region between 15 and 20% of agricultural yields. In Mali, this drop could be around 12% by 2030 (UNDP, 2019). All of this will directly affect women, who are significant actors in subsistence agriculture in the region’s countries, with all imaginable consequences.

Dependent on agriculture for their livelihoods and families, climate change is a growing source of food and nutrition insecurity for them. Already more vulnerable due to gender inequalities and socio-cultural norms that often limit their access to agricultural resources such as land and agricultural credit, the effects of climate change are likely to exacerbate this vulnerability.

Another scourge is female rural migration. Faced with the loss of farmland and dwindling natural resources, many women are forced to migrate from rural areas to urban centers for alternative livelihoods, exposing them to the risk of exploitation and abuse.

A situation exacerbated by insecurity in the Sahel

At the same time, insecurity in the Sahel, particularly violence related to conflict and terrorism, is also detrimental to women farmers. According to Oxfam, by 2020, almost 11 million people in the Sahel were facing severe food insecurity caused by climate change, insecurity, and political instability, with women and children on the front line. Insecurity disrupts farming activities, making it difficult for women to cultivate their land safely. 

In addition, violence and forced displacement can destroy agricultural infrastructure, irrigation systems, and livelihoods, exacerbating their already precarious situation.

Can agroecology be a rampart for women against climate change in West Africa?

The agroecological approach aims to promote sustainable agricultural practices harmoniously with the environment. Women farmers in West Africa have made great strides in adopting agroecological innovations on topics as varied as agroforestry, FMNR, and the use of natural compost or water management to adapt to changing conditions, preserve soil health and fertility, and diversify sources of income.

By integrating these practices, women farmers can increase the resilience of their farms to climate change. They can also reduce their dependence on chemical inputs and intensive irrigation, leading to greater self-sufficiency and improved food and nutrition security.

Agroecology also reinforces the role of women farmers as agents of change and community leaders. They share their knowledge and skills with other community members, building local climate resilience.

Women farmers and climate change in West Africa

Working to strengthen women’s position to rise the challenge

Strengthening women’s access to productive resources, economic empowerment, participation in decision-making, and access to appropriate information and technologies are pathways to mitigate the impact of climate change and strengthen their resilience.

On the specific issue of promoting women’s empowerment, the Groundswell International network displays illustrative figures in Burkina Faso in 2022 : 

  • 2,620 women organized and participated in 42 savings and credit groups, enabling them to mobilize and control financial resources. They reinvest in agroecological production, income generation, and household needs. 
  • Women’s groups in 43 villages have successfully negotiated with traditional authorities and landowners to gain access to land for collective vegetable gardening plots. 
  • 495 women are involved in small enterprises for value-added processing and sale of non-timber forest products.
  • 40% of women have become active in their communities in leadership positions

More autonomous and better equipped, they significantly increase their capacity for the effects of climate change.

Insecurity obstructs the development of agriculture as a whole. It is crucial to ensure the security of women farmers by investing in regional stability. This will promote sustainable development, enhance food security, and improve the living conditions of women farmers and their communities in the region.

Water is the leading resource for agriculture. It makes sense to intensify rainwater harvesting and management techniques for groundwater recharge and complementary irrigation to benefit women farmers who excel in market gardening, for example. These systems will capture, store, and use rainwater more efficiently and sustainably to support agricultural production throughout the year and thus strengthen their capacity to adapt to climate change.

Women farmers and climate change in West Africa

Despite their strong presence in agriculture, women often do not have the same opportunities as men regarding access to land, credit, agricultural inputs, and technical training. The impact of climate change is exacerbating this already precarious situation. However, their ability to adapt is perceptible in the field. And this is undoubtedly one of the keys to the future of healthy, sustainable agriculture in West Africa.

Field to Film: Youth Storyteller Film Festival 2023

In 2021, we launched an innovative program called Youth Storytellers in Burkina Faso and Honduras. Our goal was to create a people-centered, agroecological counter-narrative opportunity for young storytellers to capture the experiences and daily lives of smallholder farmers.

Field to Film: Youth Storyteller Film Festival 2023

Our program allowed the young people of Burkina Faso and Honduras to document the strategies and techniques that farmers in their communities use to achieve success and how they share universal elements with farmers from around the world. Moreover, these stories highlighted the use of agroecology, which has improved the resilience of these farmers.

The first Field to Film: Youth Storyteller Film Festival, held in 2022, brought voices from the field to screens across the world via Zoom. You can learn more about this program and watch our first film festival here.

New Stories, New Voices

Thanks to the success of the first Field to Film: Youth Storyteller Film Festival, we recruited more young people from communities around the world to participate this year. Our second annual film festival will feature how community-led, ecological farming solutions have changed the narrative on how smallholder farmers in seven countries tackle hunger, poverty, and climate change. The countries featured in this year’s film festival are Burkina Faso, Ecuador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Nepal, and Senegal.

Field to Film: Youth Storyteller Film Festival 2023

Here are a few of the concepts you can expect to see in our upcoming film festival presentations:

  • Burkina Faso: How agroecology is a tool to enhance the status of women
  • Guatemala: The rescue and conservation of native and creole seeds
  • Haiti: The importance of micro-enterprises, model gardens, and women leaders
  • Honduras: How agroecology plots guarantee the consumption of healthy food, higher yield, and better access to food
  • Nepal: The development and impact of women’s groups

Partners on the Ground

Our global network of local organizations has been instrumental in helping to recruit, train, and support the talented youth that have documented the stories of family farmers in their communities. The sustainable strategies that these smallholder farmers have learned and implemented can feed the growing population of the world. The use of agroecological techniques has vastly improved the resilience of families around the globe.

2nd Annual Field to Film: Youth Storyteller Film Festival

We hope you will join us December 1, 2023, from 11:00 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. (EST) as we once again showcase the work of these courageous young people and the community farmers they have documented. You can tune in from wherever you are – we will send you a Zoom link to join the presentation. Interpreters in French, Haitian Creole, Nepali, and Spanish will be available for the duration of the festival.

The event is free to attend, so be sure to sign up here to receive the link to the festival! Until then, follow us on Facebook and Instagram to get a behind-the-scenes look at the presentations you will see on December 1st.

Fertile Ground 2023: Scaling Agroecology from the Ground Up – Reissued publication with Practical Action

We take great pride in announcing the re-release of our book, “Fertile Ground: Scaling Agroecology from the Ground Up,” edited by Groundswell’s Co-Founder and Executive Director Steve Brescia, as an open-source edition published with Practical Action Publishing, launching November 15, 2023. Since the initial publication of this book in 2017, global events have only served to reaffirm our original motivation for documenting and sharing these invaluable agroecological case studies, along with the profound insights and recommendations they offer.

We seek to honor the remarkable successes, challenges, and narratives of the countless individuals, communities, and civil society organizations who generously contributed to the content of this volume, and extend the reach of this vital knowledge, by providing the electronic version at no-cost.

Agroecology as a Catalyst for Positive Change

There is a growing recognition that the fundamental structure and regulations governing our agricultural and food systems, and by extension, our broader economic and political systems, have propelled us into what is increasingly called a ‘polycrisis.’ Any society that wishes to thrive long-term must organize itself to ensure the sustained well-being of its people and the preservation of the ecosystems that support them. This isn’t happening, and the need for systemic changes is abundantly clear. 

Agroecology catalyzes positive transformation in our broken agricultural and food systems, which bear significant responsibility for climate change, contributing to the alarming global rise in obesity and diet-related illnesses, and increasing global hunger. As a field, agroecology is in a state of continuous expansion, producing practical and scalable solutions for a just transition towards sustainable, nourishing diets, regeneration of soils and landscapes, and empowering farmers and pastoralists to confront and mitigate the impacts of climate change. For those reasons, it is garnering increasing support from various institutions.

Resilience In Crises

In 2018, the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) embarked on the ‘Scaling up Agroecology Initiative’ in collaboration with multiple UN agencies and governments. They perceive agroecology as a significant contributor to 15 of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and pledged to “offer technical assistance to a minimum of 20 countries in transitioning to agroecology.” Numerous governments, international development organizations, academic institutions, and funders are increasingly recognizing the significance of agroecology and supporting its expansion. Most crucially, the agroecology movement is gaining momentum among farmers, producers, and food consumers worldwide – which is all of us.

Numerous crises are impacting our world today, and while this introduction won’t try to catalog them all, it’s crucial to highlight some recent trends that underscore the significance of agroecology.

  1. Growing Hunger: In 2021, hunger escalated, with approximately 2.3 billion people worldwide (29.3%) facing moderate to severe food insecurity. This included 924 million people in the latter category, marking an increase of 350 million since before the COVID-19 pandemic.
  2. Debt Crisis: The debt crisis is intensifying, with 60% of low-income countries at high risk of debt distress in 2022, a stark rise from the level of 20% a decade earlier.
  3. Climate Chaos: Climate change continues to manifest in unprecedented ways, leading to frequent and severe droughts, floods, heat waves, and wildfires. The notion of “once in 100 or 500-year events” has become obsolete.
  4. Pandemic Impact: The COVID-19 pandemic, by mid-2023, resulted in over 6.9 million global deaths, triggered the most substantial recession since World War II, and fundamentally altered how people live, work, travel, produce, and trade worldwide.
  5. Conflict in Ukraine: Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, a significant breadbasket of Europe, contributed to higher global prices and shortages of fossil fuels, fertilizers, and food. This conflict and shifting international relations have disrupted global supply chains and trade.
  6. AI Concerns: In early 2023, concerns regarding the unchecked power of artificial intelligence (AI) surged in public consciousness. Leading AI figures called for a six-month pause in “giant AI experiments” and advocated for robust regulation of AI. Under neoliberal economic models, many corporations are using AI, big data, and digital technology to further restructure and industrialize our failing agricultural and food systems.

Agroecology’s role in addressing these challenges is essential, as it offers sustainable solutions for food security, ecological resilience, and social well-being.

Uniting Through Imagination and Action

Agroecology inherently represents an extensive global network of human intelligence intricately woven throughout the world’s diverse ecosystems. At its essence, it champions food sovereignty, empowering localized production and control over vital resources such as seeds, land, and trees. It fosters decentralized markets and consumption patterns. Agroecology favors people, the environment, appropriate technological advancements, grassroots economic growth, and the democratization of knowledge, influence, and resources.

Just as we recognize the necessity and feasibility of transitioning away from fossil fuels in energy, transportation, and manufacturing, the same holds for agriculture and food systems. These sectors possess immense potential for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and sequestering atmospheric carbon. We can restore soil fertility and food production through biological and ecosystem-based approaches, replacing dependence on fossil fuel-driven chemical inputs. We can also shift from vulnerable, lengthy supply chains and extensive food miles to healthier, localized markets and circular economies.

As emphasized in the introduction of this book, smallholder farmers and food producers, comprising nearly one-third of the global population and responsible for most of our food supply, wield significant potential to pioneer grassroots solutions to our multifaceted challenges. They represent a decentralized network for grounded innovation, working with nature instead of against it. They require essential resources and policy support to scale these solutions.

Imagination may be one of the scarcest resources in the world today. The cases and insights presented in this book illuminate how farmers, communities, and consumers worldwide are already bridging the gap between imagination, organization, and action to generate ground-up solutions in even the most adverse conditions. Taken together, their endeavors illuminate the guiding principles that can underpin the development of healthier agricultural and food systems, as well as societies. Our shared mission is to join our imagination and action with theirs in building a more just, equitable and regenerative future.

Empowering Women in the Field: Radha’s Story

by Jacob Brescia-Weiler

On a hot morning in early June, seated in front of her home surrounded by family and neighbors, Radha Purkoti of Ratmata, Mandan Deupur Municipality, Kavre, shared with me her progress in improving her and her family’s lives. 

empowering women in the field radha
empowering women in the field radha

Radha is a livestock and vegetable farmer in the Kavrepalanchok District of Nepal. She has been a member of the Jaruwa Sustainable Farming Group since its founding in 2016. Comprised of 28 members, the group is one of 27 women’s savings and credit and farming collectives supported by Groundswell International and its partner organization, BBP Pariwar, in this district. Radha’s group has assets collected from the members in order to mobile for income generating activities, enrolling their children in schools and treatment.  

Groundswell Programs Empower Women

After hearing of the progress of similar groups in neighboring villages in improving women’s lives, Radha was motivated to join her local group to reap the same benefits through solidarity, collective work, and savings and credit cooperative finance. In addition to supporting setting up these women’s savings and credit groups, Groundswell and BBP Pariwar offer support with technical training in ecological farming, accessing seeds and livestock, and facilitating exposure visits so the women can learn from other farmers. They are working with these groups toward the shared goal of sustained self-sufficiency and long-term resilience.

Along with mobilizing savings and credit and increasing their agricultural production, the program supports the women farmers in these 27 groups in accessing livestock and increasing their incomes. 

For example, a year ago, Groundswell and BBP Pariwar supported Radha with loans and partial subsidies for two pigs. She received 7,000 Nepalese Rupees (NPR) [about US$53.30] for each pig up front, and was given nine months to repay 70% of the loan with 2% interest, a much lower rate than local money lenders. She repaid 4,900 NPR, or about US$37.30. This process allows farmers like Radha to be able to purchase livestock they could not otherwise afford while ensuring a sense of ownership and allowing them to grow their assets. 

The loan repayments allow BBP Pariwar to maintain and grow a revolving fund to continue to support other farmers in need with access to pigs and livestock. Along with Radha, three other women in her group have received similar support to obtain two pigs each over the last year. 

“We are confident that increasing numbers of women will continue to benefit from this revolving livestock fund each year,” said Gopal Nakarmi, Groundswell’s Regional Coordinator for South Asia.

“Before, I primarily earned a living selling buffalo milk and goats in local markets,” Radha said about the impact the revolving pig fund has had on her life. 

“On average, it takes a year to raise and sell a goat for around 25,000 NPR each (about US$190.40). Comparatively, pigs are faster to raise and procure a higher profit than goats,” she explained. 

empowering women in the field radha
empowering women in the field radha

Within eight months, she was able to raise the two pigs and sell them for a combined 85,000 NPR (about US$647.50, US$323.75 each). 

“During this period, I spent 18,000 thousand NPR (about US$137.10) of my own, which I saved in our savings and credit cooperative, as well as my time and energy in raising the pigs,” Radha said. She increased her income by over US$510. 

Thanks to her involvement in pig husbandry and the savings and credit cooperative, Radha has added significantly to her personal savings in the last year. Whereas her husband has historically been the primary breadwinner in the family, Radha is now able to make a more substantial financial contribution to her personal and family expenses, strengthening her sense of autonomy and decision-making power in her family and community. 

On a personal level, Radha shared that her newfound success has fostered a sense of empowerment and self-development. “I have overcome my anxiety of interacting with others,” Radha noted with a proud smile. “I speak more freely and confidently now.” 

It was clear from the reactions of her loved ones that they had observed the same growth.

empowering women in the field radha
empowering women in the field radha

Radha has also reinvested her profits into agroecological farming techniques to improve her production. She now has a livestock shed to protect animals from disease and facilitate the collection of cow urine and manure, which she uses in biofertilizers and biopesticides. She erected a plastic tunnel to grow tomatoes and extend her growing season, and she is harvesting more produce and fodder this year than she ever has.

Resilience Through Obstacles

Of course, Radha and families like hers in the area continue to face challenges. The local market for pork is limited, in part because the meat is considered appropriate only for the Dalit, or Untouchable, caste. This is particularly true in rural areas where caste expectations remain more rigid. The demand for goat meat is higher in local areas, but it has also seen a drop in recent years. 

Another major obstacle rural families face is transportation. Every morning, Radha’s husband travels 1.5 hours on foot to deliver buffalo milk to the local market. Farmers who cannot produce fodder for livestock on their own farms must travel about 5 kilometers (about 3 miles) to the nearest village to buy it. Transportation is complicated by poor road conditions, especially during the monsoon season when landslides and road blockages increase.

Given the remoteness of their community and the lack of services, limited access to veterinary care is also a challenge for farmers. Another member of Radha’s farming group who also received two pigs from the revolving fund, lost one to dysentery. 

“I traveled to the nearest village and explained the symptoms to the veterinary technician, but the medication he gave me didn’t help.” 

The veterinarian finally paid a home visit to administer an injection to the sick pig, but it died a few days later. 

“Over the course of seven months, I spent 16,000 NPR (about US$121.85) to raise one pig and sold him for 35,000 NPR (US$266.60). I earned money, but I could have earned much more from selling two pigs.” 

To address this challenge, Groundswell and BBP-Pariwar support training young women as para-vets who can provide veterinary services to local farmers.

empowering women in the field radha
empowering women in the field radha

Looking Towards The Future

Radha also reflected on her hopes for the future.

“I’d like to have fencing around our land, to protect from grazing animals. We also need help making it easier to sell our produce – maybe setting up a market right here in our community, establishing connections with wholesale sellers, or hiring a middleman to transport goods to market.” 

With a laugh, she added that she hoped to receive another pig from the revolving fund down the line. 

Navraj Upadhyaya, Groundswell’s Assistant Regional Coordinator for South Asia, passionately encouraged Rhada to continue to build her self-sufficiency, think bigger, and strive for continued growth.

“Opportunity is something you are creating.”

jacob brescia-weiler

About the Author

Jacob Brescia-Weiler, son of Groundswell’s Executive Director and Co-Founder Steve Brescia, graduated from Tufts University in 2017 and has worked to provide legal and support services to immigrants in Guadalajara, Mexico, New York City, and the Washington, DC area.  He will attend UC Davis Law School in August 2023. He spent the last year working and traveling in Vietnam.  He is grateful for the opportunity to visit Groundswell’s Nepali partner, BBP Pariwar, and learn about the work of women’s self-help groups.

Empowering Women in the Field: Binda’s Story

by Jacob Brescia-Weiler

Binda Ayu is a tomato farmer in the Sindhuli district of Nepal. As a member of the Creative Women’s Group, the first savings and credit cooperative of its kind in the area, she is supported by Groundswell International and its local partner organization, Sindhuli Integrated Development Services (SIDS/Nepal). 

Empowering Women in the Field

Groundswell Programs Empower Women

Binda joined the savings and credit group 18 months ago, motivated to access high-yielding variety seeds and support with raising livestock. Given the quickly growing productivity of her farm since then, she is confident she made the right decision.

“I had heard by word of mouth that the group was doing very well,” Binda said during our recent visit to her farm, “I now realize this is absolutely true.”

Binda primarily grows tomatoes because they are more profitable and produce for a longer period than other crops. She also cultivates a variety of other vegetables, including cabbage, cauliflower, cucumber, cowpea, and bitter gourd, depending on what is in season. Binda uses plastic tunnels to farm tomatoes year-round, which protects them from extreme climatic conditions. 

Empowering Women in the Field

“Before joining the Creative Women’s Group,” she explained, “I had only one plastic tunnel constructed with bamboo from my land.” 

Three months ago, Groundswell and SIDS/Nepal granted Binda an additional plastic tunnel for tomato farming. Since early 2022, she has also received support to access seeds (both tomato and fodder crops), and materials to facilitate vermicomposting and biofertilizer preparation, including cement and drums, as well as technical training. 

While she has only recently adopted these farming strategies, they have already made a significant impact. 

“Now that I have two plastic tunnels, I can grow a much higher volume of tomatoes,” Binda reported. “This means that my income has already started to increase considerably.” 

In the three months since erecting the second plastic tunnel, Binda has sold approximately 35 kilograms (about 77 pounds) of tomatoes, after home consumption. Considering that tomato plants typically remain productive for at least 9-12 months, she expects her crop yield and profit to keep rising. 

Binda’s husband shared another impressive figure. On the same plot of land where they have historically produced an average of 7,000 Nepali Rupees (NPR) worth of cereals (about US$53.30), they produced 50,000 NPR worth in 2022 (about US$380.85). In 2023, they are expecting 75,000 NPR worth of crop yield (about US$571.30) thanks largely to the new plastic tunnel. 

This flourishing productivity has encouraged Binda to shift her focus from only subsistence-level farming to local commerce. Previously, she grew supplementary crops, such as cowpea and legumes, mainly to feed her family; in recent months, she has produced a surplus, selling 50 kilograms (about 110 pounds) of cowpeas at the local market. She plans to do the same with other vegetables. Now, her family and local consumers have greater access to healthy local food. 

Binda’s budding success has also brought newfound financial independence. 

“I used to depend mostly on my husband for money,” she said. “But now I have funds of my own to contribute. I can finally provide for my children and pay for basic family needs.” Binda’s youngest daughter, Sinda, a 14-year-old who spoke with us during a break from school, offered her own perspective on shifting family dynamics: “We don’t need to buy vegetables from the market nearly as much anymore; now we have a lot of extra support that was not available before.” 

Empowering Women in the Field
Empowering Women in the Field

Beyond money, Binda has a strengthened sense of self-confidence. “I feel much more comfortable talking to new people now; I can introduce myself and speak openly.” Binda is particularly eager to share advice about tomato farming and teach other local farmers. “I tell them to start with a small area of land, and expand later on once they’ve seen initial success.”

Groundswell and SIDS/Nepal have also supported Binda in going on an exposure visit to a nearby agricultural learning center to learn from the experience of other women farmers. She was impressed by the drip-irrigation technology she observed there and hopes to implement the same practice on her farm. 

Resilience Through Obstacles

While Binda was previously illiterate, she has also started learning to read and write, already making fast progress. 

“One major challenge is water scarcity during the winter season,” Binda said. “Drip-irrigation makes water use more efficient because water droplets go directly to the root system.” 

Another obstacle Binda faces is the high infestation of crop pests and insects in her fields. Groundswell and SIDS/Nepal have been supporting her with biofertilizer and biopesticide development, which has allowed her to stop spraying chemicals on her vegetables. 

Looking Towards The Future

In the future, Binda also plans to receive assistance with livestock shed improvement. In addition to easing the collection of animal waste for biofertilizer, this will help keep her livestock healthy, which is vital given the lack of adequate veterinary care in the area. 

In other neighboring farms, SIDS/Nepal has supported women’s groups with revolving funds for goats and buffaloes, allowing them to multiply the number of beneficiaries. Binda hopes to take advantage of this opportunity as well.

At the end of our visit, Binda sliced a large cucumber from her farm for us to taste. She flashed a satisfied smile as we enjoyed the crisp vegetable. 

“I am very grateful for the opportunity to share my story,” she told us. “I feel energized and encouraged to keep expanding in the coming days.” 

As she gave us a tour of her land, it was clear to see her pride in what she has achieved. 

“Please come visit again,” she insisted before we left, “I will keep making my farm better and better.”

jacob brescia-weiler

About the Author

Jacob Brescia-Weiler, son of Groundswell’s Executive Director and Co-Founder Steve Brescia, graduated from Tufts University in 2017 and has worked to provide legal and support services to immigrants in Guadalajara, Mexico, New York City, and the Washington, DC area.  He will attend UC Davis Law School in August 2023. He spent the last year working and traveling in Vietnam.  He is grateful for the opportunity to visit Groundswell’s Nepali partner, BBP Pariwar, and learn about the work of women’s self-help groups.

Mayan Seeds of Hope

By: Edwin Escoto

During my recent trip to some of Guatemala’s villages, I had the opportunity to witness how passionate the indigenous people (Maya Achi) are about preserving their native seeds, symbols of their identity, culture, and resistance. 

mayan seeds of hope

I spent one week with my colleagues, Tim and Judelon Lasalle, trying to learn and understand how essential and strategic it is for the Mayan people to control their own seeds – essential because they can decide what type of seed they want to save and strategic because, through the native seeds, they can grow sustainable and healthy food. How closely their choice of seeds is related to their culinary preferences is especially interesting.

The Mayan people gave us important insights in terms of coexistence with nature and common goods. They call it the Milpa system, which consists of sowing different crops such as corn, beans, and pumpkins (known as the three sisters by the Mayans), medicinal plants, some edible herbs, and other crops which are beneficial to the whole system. All these plants can grow at the same time in the same plot. The Milpa system is also considered a seed sanctuary and plays an important role in saving and preserving seeds. 

One day, we visited the community of Chiac, where Doña Silvia Sic lives. She is a co-founder and the current board president of Groundswell partner Qachuu Aloom. Doña Silvia grows corn, beans, and pumpkins in her plot, as well as some types of cover crops, like jack beans (Canavalia ensiformes) and some types of grass used for feeding cows. She harvests three times per year. 

mayan seeds of hope

But how does Doña Silvia do that? She told us that she first understands that she has to take care of the soil because if we keep the life in the soil, we will grow healthy food and be healthy people. Doña Silvia implements some agroecological and cultural practices such as minimal disturbance of the soil, cover crops, integration of animals into farming, and native seeds. Additionally, she does not use synthetic fertilizers or pesticides. These practices allow the restoration and improvement of soil life. Doña Silvia also has a garden plot where she grows a lot of edible and medicinal plants.

Doña Silvia told us that she became a seed saver (Guardiana de semillas) because she knows that the native seeds are part of her identity and are a symbol of resistance for indigenous communities. The native seeds are sacred; we need to keep them and protect them as we protect our lives. Many more women like Doña Silvia are producing, sharing, and selling multiple species of native seeds. 

Before we left Doña Silvia’s plot, Tim said:

“I would love to say thank you very much for receiving our visit. Cristobal and Edwin invited us to come visit, and we are very, very pleased we came. We very much are inspired by your hard work and your industrious efforts to create an income for your family, to grow food that is healthy without chemicals, and that, in fact, you become more innovative, creating more diverse and resilient production systems. We love that you are producing food that is more nutritious for people, making them healthier, and we love that you are integrating livestock and cows with your cropping system because that makes your food more nutritious and the whole system more resilient. Judelon and I just would like to say we are very pleased to be partners with you as donors first to World Neighbors and then to Groundswell in this effort to make lives better. So, thank you.”

Next, we headed to the Qachuu Aloom Training Center, where the organization has a small farm for showing different technologies of soil and water management and reproducing native seeds to share with more than 500 participating families of 31 communities in three municipalities (Rabinal, Cubulco, and San Miguel Chicaj) of Baja Verapaz. Qachu Aloom has named this place The Seed Sanctuary.

Our visit ended in the Seed House of Qachuu Aloom, which is part of their strategy to save native seeds for future generations. To do that, they are using pottery vessels, another legacy left to us by the indigenous Mayans. 

mayan seeds of hope

To close our visit, Judelon offered some inspirational words to Don Cristobal, who is a co-founder and director of Qachuu Aloom. She said:

“We know that the ancestors brought us here, we know that our Mother Earth is where the ancestors live, we know that it was no accident that we met […] we thank the ancestors for making this possible today, we appreciate it and we are thankful for the healing of the earth and the ancestors’ presence today. Thank you.” 

It was a fascinating visit to learn how passionate the people in this Mayan village are and to remind us that we have received the seeds from our ancestors to pass on to our daughters and sons as a guarantee for food sovereignty. 

We want to thank the people we visited for inspiring us to be seed savers because recovering the relevance of the seeds is the most meaningful part of our work.

Learn more about Groundswell’s mission and our impact in this and other parts of the world.