Women’s Farmer Association: Empowering Women in Sustainable Agriculture, SAVA-style

Translated by James Herrera, Ph.D., Program Coordinator the DLC-SAVA Conservation Program

Globally, women are essential to the agricultural workforce. Despite this, they have minimal rights to land and are underrepresented in opportunities such as education and formal training, as well as loans and subsidies. This problem is causing greater disparities in health and socioeconomics among genders, and has repercussions in food security, poverty, and public health.

In Madagascar, women have less access to land than men, receive less education or business training, and are underrepresented in extension services. Women need more development opportunities to close the gender gap, which will have cascading effects in improving other aspects of sustainable livelihoods.

Mdm. Fredette is a local leader and has brought together 20 women in her community in a cooperative they call Mamy Tia, meaning “We like sweet things.” Their cooperative meets every Friday morning to rotate working in each other’s gardens. Here, Mdm. Odette shows off her diverse home garden, where she grows ginger, green leafy vegetables, sesame, squash, and rice in her own backyard. Photo by Laura de Ara.

Agriculture is a significant cause of deforestation and climate change across the globe. In places like Madagascar, people practice traditional techniques such as swidden agriculture (also called slash and burn agriculture or tavy) for rice, beans, corn, cassava, and other annual crops. There are many agricultural opportunities in Madagascar, especially in the northeastern SAVA region. The climate is tropical with long wet, hot seasons and short dry seasons. Many crops can grow well here, including the most important foods like rice, beans, bananas, as well as cash crops like coffee, cloves, vanilla, cacao, and ginger. We also have many fruit trees like mangos, coconuts, lychees, avocados, papayas, citruses, and more.

Despite these opportunities, many farmers have not maximized their productivity. For example, most farmers grow only rice or vanilla. They grow rice to feed their families, but often it is not enough for the whole year. Profits made from the sale of vanilla, typically less than USD 6,000 per year per household, are used to buy rice in the lean season, to pay school fees for the children, or to make improvements on the home. Vanilla prices are extremely volatile, making it an unpredictable income source. There is an untapped opportunity for agricultural diversification that can also lead to income diversification, while decreasing the pressure on natural resources such as forest and soil.

Within the cooperative Mamy Tia, women share resources and results. Here, four of the members work together to farm a hillside with several other members who don’t have land. With garden beds amended with locally-sourced compost, they plant green leafy vegetables, which are a staple in their diets. They also have comparison beds, highlighting how using mulch produces a better harvest than beds with no mulch. The group is also planting rainfed hillside rice without cutting and burning vegetation or tilling the soil. Instead, they grow cover crops, which they cut and leave lying on the soil surface to decompose slowly. Rice is then planted directly into this mulch cover. The women of Mamy Tia have been impressed with the rapid growth of the rice stalks and are excitedly anticipating their yield. They are especially pleased because the last two rainy seasons have been atypically late and dry, and most rice farmers have been suffering as their crops failed. Photo by Laura de Ara.

The university in the SAVA (Centre Universitaire Regional de la SAVA, or CURSA) has developed an Agronomy department with the goal of teaching sustainable agriculture as well as agribusiness entrepreneurship. Through a collaboration with DLC-SAVA Conservation, CURSA has been leading workshops to train farmers about agroecology. Like the related disciplines of regenerative agriculture and permaculture, agroecology promotes sustainable farming to improve soil health and water management, and to minimize environmental degradation.

In our agroecology workshops, we teach about market vegetable farming with diverse and nutritious foods like beans, green leaves, ground fruits, tubers, and more. We also teach about agroforestry:  planting trees in the agricultural landscape for multiple benefits, including diversified crops and improved soil fertility, water management, and on-farm biodiversity.

Thus far, we have reached over 150 farming families in six villages. Some farmers have reported 100% increases in yields of both food and cash crops using these new agroecology techniques, compared to plots using traditional practices. The results are especially encouraging because these early adopters are now teaching their families and their neighbors, spreading the skills throughout their communities.

Overcoming Obstacles to Women’s Participation

Though we strive to create an inclusive space for both women and men, young and old, we have seen that there are many obstacles that preclude women from participating in the workshops. Women have many chores at home, including cooking, cleaning, caring for young and elderly, and fetching water. They often cannot leave their homes for a full day to participate in educational events, because there would be no one to tend the home. In addition, men in Madagascar tend to be more outspoken and to dominate social situations with mixed genders. Women tend to be quiet and reserved, reluctant to voice an opinion in the presence of men.

To overcome some of the barriers that women face, we initiated a series of workshops focusing only on women. We recruit from existing women’s interest groups, as well as the family and friends of female participants from previous workshops. The team of trainers include ourselves as the DLC-CURSA Agroecology Extension Interns, as well as selected female trainers from each village who have proven during evaluations to successfully implement the agroecology techniques.

Agroecology training is combined with information about hygienic, nutritious, and diversified diets. We emphasize the value of colorful vegetables and a balance of plant-based foods that are protein- and iron-rich. Nestorine Manantenasoa, pictured here, has a master’s degree in nutritional health and aspires to combine the workshops with research that can improve the nutritional health of mothers and infants. Photo by Laura de Ara.

Thus far, we have conducted workshops at two target communities with 70 participants. The women engage in hands-on demonstrations to create model home gardens. They practice techniques like making compost from locally-sourced materials, amending soil with the compost they create, covering the soil with mulch and cover crops, and designing the garden to capture rainwater run-off. All these methods can be performed easily with free, local materials and can be done in a small, unused corner of the yard.

We also provide notebooks and pens so women can take notes, and guide women in creating a garden diary to track their work and yields. The women receive starter-packs of seeds including beans, greens, and other vegetables. We teach about crop rotation and distribute garden calendars specific to the SAVA region to promote rotation in relation to the appropriate seasons.

Our goal is to develop a network of women who engage with agroecology principles and practices. Through this network, we want to create a cooperative of women farmers who can be certified and market their produce as organic, sustainable, and improving the livelihoods of women in the countryside. Through these efforts, we can meet our sustainable development goals for closing the gender gap, ending hunger and poverty, and safeguarding biodiversity.

Fresh produce markets, such as the one pictured above in Sambava, are a major market for Madagascar’s rural cultivators. Photo by Sara Clark.