Women’s effort to fight hunger bearing fruit in Daadab

As Kenya contemplates a policy shift from rain-fed agriculture to irrigation, some women in North Eastern Province are ahead of the game: they have turned to rain water harvesting for food production and their efforts are bearing fruit.

With an annual rainfall of less than 200mm, Dadaab, like most other arid and semi-arid lands can hardly support food crops, let alone the idea of irrigation as no rivers exist in the region. But groups of women in Dadaab are making use of the little rainfall to produce food for their households. They are harvesting water as it falls on their fenced parcels of land and subsequently seeding them.

Reeling from an annual ritual that is hunger, they plunged into crop cultivation two years ago, an unfamiliar occupation for the predominantly pastoralist people of the region. As their men while their time away relaxing and others constantly on the move with their livestock in search of water and pasture, women in Lagdera and Fafi districts came together in groups to secure their families’ livelihoods.

That women are the ones tilling the land is not something unusual. The cultural practice among the hitherto pastoralist Somali people is that women are responsible for putting up family houses, a role that squarely falls within the domain of men among other communities.

Angry residents

And, when a number of food security projects were initiated two years ago to placate angry residents amidst soaring relations with refugees, women were the obvious target for the simple reason that they bear the brunt of incessant hunger in the region.

The Food For Assets (FFA) initiative, undertaken jointly by Ministry of Water and Irrigation and World Food Programme, was launched in response to worsening relations between host communities and refugees brought about by a stiff competition for resources such as water, firewood and pasture in a fragile ecosystem.

For Fatuma Sheikh and several other women in Dadaab, their decision to venture into the uncharted waters of tending delicate crops in the midst of harsh climatic conditions is paying off. Today, the women are reaping the benefits of their labour as they have in a small way managed to feed their families.

Comprising 166 households, Dadaab Umbrella 1 and B Women Organisations, the women were mobilised through a novel empowerment programme to rid the region of dependency on relief food and livestock. Through the project, the women’s groups were given food in exchange for their working on tools—water pans—they could use to produce their own food. Today, the women are registering humble success in combating perennial hunger in their households.

The FFA project, which was started in November 2007, aims at empowering communities in the Dadaab area to produce their own food and secure pasture and water for themselves and their livestock and rehabilitate their environment.

During the first year, the groups battled rock-hard soil and dust as they sought to prepare water harvesting structures in preparation for crop cultivation. But during a recent visit, the Nation found a different landscape. A five-acre piece of land belonging to Ms Sheik’s group is covered with green and leafy kales, onions, lettuce, watermelon, maize and millet crops, sharply contrasting with the bare patch of land bordering it.

Are fed well

“We are not selling to non-members. Our intention is to ensure that our children are fed well, and then the remainder we can sell,” Ms Sheikh said. This way, the groups are trying to build a revolving fund to strengthen their farming activities. Ms Sheikh says this is line with project financiers whose aim was to give them support in starting off.

“We cannot forever rely on outside help. This is what has pushed us to the perennial reliance of relief food. We are determined to feed our own families,” says Ms Asha Abdi, secretary to Group 1. She says their perseverance and hard work is paying off as their children get the sorely needed balanced diet.

“Malnutrition had been a common feature in our families but the health of our children is improving. I don’t regret venturing into this activity (farming) although it has not been easy,” Ms Abdi said. “We are talking about shifting to irrigation, that’s okay, but how many farmers will be involved in this venture?” asks James Yatich, director, land reclamation at Ministry of Water and Irrigation.