With Irish farmers increasingly experiencing the impact of the weather on their crops and livestock, Christian Aid is keen to make them aware of the struggles faced by their counterparts on the frontline of the climate crisis and how they’re coping.
“The late beginning of the rainy season coupled with patchy and poor rainfall has pushed over two million people across Kenya into a food crisis,” said Katie Cox, communications officer at Christian Aid Ireland.
“The situation is particularly dire in Northern Kenya and is expected to worsen, with low rainfall expected for another month,” she said.
“In Marsabit county, located in the country’s north, over 160,000 people are in need of emergency aid to help them cope with the impacts of the drought.
“It is in Marsabit county that Christian Aid’s local partner has supported a women’s group harvest and sell fodder which not only brings them a much-needed source of income, but also helps ensure the wider farming community is able to feed their livestock during the dry seasons as well as when drought strikes.”
Fatuma Molu, a 70-year-old widower and mother of eight, is the chair of the 10ac Aldisaudo farm, run by the Jaldesa Women’s Group.
“In the past, being a farmer here was very lucrative. There was plenty of rain and our crops thrived,” Fatuma said.
However, over time, Fatuma has witnessed how climate change has affected her home.
Climate crisis frontline
“Our community has a lot of challenges brought on by climate change. We are experiencing drought, hunger and thirst,” she said.
Droughts are lasting longer and resulting in a loss of water and pasture lands for animals to graze on. This leads to disputes between communities as they clash over the limited resources.
“The drought has affected us in a big way; there’s no water, no food and the livestock die. We don’t have food in our farms,” Fatuma said.
“For the past three years we’ve had bad weather and low rainfall. The crops don’t do well, after a short while, there’s nothing.
“Climate change affects everybody. We all depend on the rain for food. If there is no rain, it means there is no food – except for the few who are salaried. Babies are malnourished because their mothers don’t get enough food to eat.”
The Jaldesa Women’s Group started four years ago and now brings together 40 women from Fatuma’s community. They were introduced to Christian Aid’s local partner Pastoralist Community Initiative and Development Assistance (PACIDA), which provided them with seeds and training to be able to grow and sell fodder, to earn an income, as well as skills to manage a farm to produce it.
“We never knew about making money from the grass,” Fatuma said.
“We give our all in the planting of the grass. We sell the grass just like we would sell a cow which helps us to send our children to school.
“PACIDA taught us how to grow the grass. We first plough our fields using the tractors and later the cows. They’ve taught us how to do all that, and the group has grown over the years.”
Fodder production
The group also produce fodder for its own use, helping to ensure its animals have feed – even during the dry seasons and when drought occurs.
PACIDA has also helped the group to find a market for its fodder, sharing its contact information as well as putting them in direct touch with potential buyers who move around the county and now come to the women directly to buy fodder.
During periods of drought, the group sells each bale for between 300-500 Kenyan shillings (€2.30-€3.80).
The business has helped Fatuma and the other women earn an additional source of income as the affects of climate change makes it harder to raise and sell cattle, which is their main source of livelihood.
Using the money they earned from their fodder production business, the group is also able to help its members to improve their lives in other ways.
“We decided to build a house for an elderly lady in our group since she was living in a grass-thatched building, where she lived with four children, all without parents. Using money from the business we built her a good house just by the roadside,” Fatuma said.
Katie said that Fatuma’s story really demonstrates how people living in countries least responsible for causing the climate crisis are taking the brunt of its worst affects right now.
“Wealthy, high emitting countries at COP26 have a responsibility to pay their ecological debt and provide the funding needed to help developing countries meet the cost of adapting to more frequent intense extreme weather such as drought,” Katie concluded.