Women can change the face of agriculture

I remember when I was in boarding school, the punishments went as follows; detention, excluded from disco, digging, suspension and then expulsion. Agriculture has often had negative connotations; either in regards to being a form of punishment or task for the lower socio-economic classes. Women are many things; powerful, always right and most importantly nurturing. Women are naturally and beautifully designed with a ‘mother’s instinct’. This is why we created a mythical creature called ‘Mother Nature’, because we know that no one can take better care of the earth than a woman. She will make sure that the ‘home’ is always clean and beautiful. A true woman (or mother) will make sure that not one hair is out of place nor a single breath a minute too late. A real mother will call you to your room to tell you it is messy when one shoe is crooked. When it comes to women, the glass is neither full nor empty. It is clean. A true woman is meticulous. This is why I believe that women would make for the best farmers. Recently, I was taken on a field by a lady and as I was walking through the setup of a greenhouse, it felt somewhat poetic. The experience became euphemistic and it felt like an imitation of ‘real life’. The greenhouse mimicked her home, it had four walls and it was white, clean and extremely pristine. It felt like an actual home. The attention and the care she gave the seedlings mimicked the nurture a mother gives to her new born baby. The care and affection definitely felt like a mother’s touch. The lady had a well engineered drip irrigation system that so carefully and accurately dripped every water droplet; it was just like she set up a bottle to feed her many children. I heard somewhere that plants grow better when they are shown love, affection and are spoken too. Who can show that kind of love better than a woman? This is no false prophecy or a result of my wild imagination – if you look back at the life the late Dr Wangari Maathai. She was Mother Nature personified and talked about trees like they were her own children and the earth her home; she did everything to make sure that she took care of her home. In her Nobel Peace Prize speech she said that, ‘‘I always felt that our work was not simply about planting trees. It was about inspiring people to take charge of their environment, the system that governed them, their lives, and their future.” Dr Wanagari had foresight, like most mothers. She saw that we were breaking the ecosystem and destroying the future of our children. The ecosystem cannot function adequately if certain elements are missing. This is just like a home and a home needs all the components of the system to work. As children of the earth, we all have to do our chores. We need to make sure that we are all playing our role in ensuring that our ‘home’ is safe, equipped and happy. There is one thing I love about being a woman: you can never tell our occupations by looking at us. Women do and will continue to change the face of agriculture. Agriculture is a lot more than self sustainability or conservation of nature. Agriculture is slowly transforming from dirty hands and feet to pleats and heels. Agriculture is metamorphosing into agribusiness, it is no longer a poor man’s solution to hunger but it is now an income generating occupation. The writer is a Communications and Business Development Manager at Balton Rwanda Ltd. henrietta@balton.co.rw

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Women can change the face of agriculture