Soumaila Diarra -
Wearing a long white tunic covered with bright-coloured patterns, Aminata Berthe bends to water a plot of lettuce with a can in this village near Bamako, the Malian capital.
“I’m the first one in my home to wake up and the last to go to bed,” she said, pausing to catch her breath. She has been farming the land for three years as part of a women’s vegetable cooperative, but doesn’t have the right to own it.
“The land we’re farming belongs to the husband of one of the cooperative members,” she explained.
In Malian society, men hold primary rights of access to and control over land and decide which parts, if any, women are allowed to farm.
But worsening climate conditions such as unpredictable rainfall and prolonged drought have increased competition for land, leading men to encroach on land traditionally farmed by women.
Change is afoot, however. The government this year could pass a new law that would set aside a share of government-managed land for women to farm, said Siriman Sakho, a rural development specialist who works with a group of Malian farmers’ representatives.
Discussion about the proposed law have included farmers’ groups, particularly the National Federation of Rural Women in Mali, he said.
“The government is in a drive to fit up farming land throughout the country,” Sakho said. “Under the new law, the authorities would give women exclusive access to 10 per cent of government-managed land, at a cost of 65,000 CFA francs ($105) per year.”
Each woman who accessed land would pay the annual fee, he said.
Meanwhile, “the rest of government land will continue to be farmed by women and men alike,” he said.
Under the Malian Family Code, women are required to obey their husbands, who are considered head of the household. “This means women can lose the land they are farming on if their husband, brother or father decides to sell the family’s farm,” said Sakho.
The proposed law is a welcome development, said Bakary Togola, the head of a farmer group that supports the draft. “As climate is changing, agriculture needs to change too,” he said.
Oumou Bah, the minister for the Promotion of Women, Children and Families, said at an event in Bamako in December that giving women access to land would improve not just their living conditions, but the economy. “Women account for 70 per cent of food production in the country,” she said.— Thomson Reuters Foundation
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