Fanny Petitbon est la responsable plaidoyer pour CARE France.
CARE France est une association de solidarité internationale en première ligne pour observer les effets des changements climatiques qui n’impactent pas tout le monde de la même façon.
Fanny Petitbon et Elodie Nace
Fanny Petitbon répondra aux questions d’Élodie Nace, d’Alternatiba, dans l’Héroïne du Nova Jour.
Fifty-year-old Nafika grows maize, leaf vegetables, onions and tomatoes on her farm in Mgwase village. She also has two cows and some chickens. Nafika has noticed a significant reduction in rains over recent years, which has made her crop yield less predictable and led to insecurity in her business. ‘During the rainy season, we are confident we will get our crops, but now we have minimal rains and it is difficult for us to know if we will
harvest.’ Nafika said that her yield reduces by as much as nine-tenths during times of drought, which has worsened over the past three years. The mother of seven children, this has a huge impact on her family’s livelihood. She only has two children still dependant on her and one still in school, but the fees and food for the family are paid for by selling vegetables. Their diets have been affected: ‘When the drought wasn’t so bad, we could have three meals per day, but when there’s drought we can only afford one or two meals a day, and we only eat ugali. I wish my children could eat a variety of food, including more nutritious food like banana and beans.’ ‘Before the drought started getting bad, I had money, but now money is a problem. Food is a problem. A lot has changed.’ ‘When things were going well, I started building an extension on my house. But I’ve had to put this on hold.’ Because of the disruption caused by drought, Nafika has been forced to cut her losses somewhat and devote less time to the farm. To make up for lost income, she looks for extra cash elsewhere, working as a labourer on other people’s farms and cracking up rocks into small pieces to sell to construction workers. Pointing to a mountain a few kilometres down the dirt road, Nafika said: ‘There is a big group of us who crack stones together, in a clearing below the mountain. We do it from 6am until midday, and sell the pieces to men with trucks who are doing construction work.’ This is Nafika’s job every other Monday and Tuesday. The weeks she isn’t doing this, she is labouring on other people’s farms. She said: ‘It has to be Monday and Tuesday, because I have to go to the market on Wednesday to get food for my family, and if I miss it there is no other way I can get food. And the other days of the week, I have to work on my own farm.’ Nafika runs her farm with her husband and said they use everything they earn to buy food. He also cracks stones with her. ‘Everything we get, we use together,’ she said. But she admits that she works harder than her husband. ‘As well as working on the farm, I’m the one who is getting up early to make uji for the family, collecting firewood, bringing it home and housekeeping. I have a bigger role in the house.’
The new CARE project works with 2,460 farmers in six villages across the Same region of Tanzania. The region is feeling the impact of climate change with extreme weather including drought and floods, which damage people’s crops. The mostly female farmers will attend a Farmers’ Field Business School, where they’ll learn ‘climate smart’ farming techniques.
The project is funded through UK aid match (where the UK government matched donations made by CARE supporters to our Help Her Live, Learn and Earn campaign).
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