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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 n …
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. 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 re …
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, challen …
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. 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 Pari …
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). 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 …
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. 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 …