In the Swamps of Sierra Leone, Rural Women Plant Seeds of Peace
By Lydia Wamala
Large mineral deposits in Sierra Leone have often caused tensions between farming communities and miners, especially in the rural south. But a group of women have become ambassadors for peace.
The mid-mornings of Matagelema village in south Sierra Leone often find the local women ankle-deep inside large rice fields. If they are not planting, they are weeding their crop. They also build or repair bunds and canals that the World Food Programme (WFP) and the Government of Sierra Leone are assisting them to set up to facilitate irrigation, which will boost their yields.
“We were forced to abandon our initial farms because of conflict with miners. They were mining in the very place we cultivated, thereby reducing our farming space. About 150 of us decided to form Manumuma Women’s Farmers’ Association in 2020 and establish ourselves here in Matagelema,” says Mamie Achion, coordinator of the women farmers.
Most of the group members are widows or single mums, and almost all of them raise their own as well as their relatives’ children, Mamie says, and so the women are determined to succeed to be able to feed their families.
Matagelema is situated about a kilometer away from a rural trading centre called Moriba, built out of the mining industry. Staff buses belonging to a big mining company ply the area all day; at night, flood lights expose the silhouette of a processing plant. Sierra Leone has the largest deposits of rutile in the world, a mineral used in the manufacturing of ceramics, paint, plastics and even food products that require a bright white colour.
In the past, tension could escalate because of the competition for land. The communities were also troubled by the large pits often left behind and the land degradation associated with mining. The tensions mostly happened Moyamba and Pujehun districts, which host large mining and oil palm concessions.
Sierra Leone is also naturally endowed with inland valley swamps, a high potential ecosystem that if effectively used, can provide high agricultural yields, and bring about food self-sufficiency. But due to limited technical knowledge and the labour intensity required to develop irrigations systems, most swamps have been abandoned. Instead, farmers typically rely on shifting, upland agriculture, characterized by low yields and environmental damage.
By working with groups such as Mamie’s, WFP supports a Government initiative to build peaceful relationships between private companies and communities. Implemented jointly by WFP and the United Nations Development Programme under the UN Peacebuilding Fund, the initiative includes the provision of cash transfers to women and youth groups as an incentive to cultivate rice, legumes and vegetables in the inland valley swamps.
“When there is no food, people get agitated and conflicts emerge,” explains Swalihu Jusu, who oversees the peacebuilding project on behalf of the Government’s behalf?
Working with the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, WFP has created agricultural employment for over 3,500 women and youths by training them on how to plant rice and vegetables using improved methods. WFP also provided fertilizer and seeds, supplied machines to process the harvest, and guaranteed farmers’ access to the market.
With additional funding from Japan, WFP has even gone beyond Moyamba and Pujehun to support more groups in six districts altogether in 113 communities. Women and youth groups have built irrigation schemes on 890 hectares of land.
“There is no more commotion now,” Mamie adds, “we come together and agree on how to distribute our tasks and how many days and hours in a week to work under WFP’s (peacebuilding) programme.
Working with the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, WFP has created agricultural employment for over 3,500 women and youths by training them on how to plant rice and vegetables using improved methods. WFP also provided fertilizer and seeds, supplied machines to process the harvest, and guaranteed farmers’ access to the market.
In their first meeting convened by the town chief in January 2020, the women agreed to form a farmers group and to contribute 5,000 Leones or roughly US$0.50 each to have the group registered with the National Farmers’ Federation. thereafter, they agreed to contribute an additional 10,000 Leones each to buy seeds and fertilizers. They cultivated 10 hectares of swamps that the group itself secured in Matagelema; but the harvest failed because the group lacked access to improved, quick-yielding seeds.
“This time, we are expecting a big harvest because we learned how to plant effectively, we are using high-yielding seeds and the bunds and canals now make it possible to retain fertilizer and water for us to plant crops several times in a year,” Mamie says.
But some group members do not wait for their first harvest to enjoy the benefits of the project. Each time she receives her share of the money from WFP, 31-year-old Mamie Feika, and mother of five buys delicacies for the children and can afford schoolbooks and uniforms for the older ones.
For the residents of Matagelema, like Feika, WFP’s assistance is not only offering new farming opportunities; it empowers women and youth with the skills, resources and means to restore the degraded land and grow more nutritious food using climate-smart methods that nurture the environment and build long term resilience while contributing to resolving land conflicts/strengthening peace within the communities.
This intervention is financially supported by United Nations Peacebuilding Fund and Japan.