The 39-year-old mother of four grew food crops to feed her family, but earned little income from her tomato crop because of poor quality and limited access to markets. Martha, like many farmers in her community, had no choice but to accept the low prices offered by…
Pascasie Mukagasana has known great hardship. She was separated from her children and her husband, Athanase Nzigiyimana, for a year following the 1994 Rwanda genocide. They reunited, only to lose a son to illness. In 1998, Athanase was wrongfully imprisoned for 10 years. Alone with her children, Pascasie struggled…
In a hand-built barn in northern Mozambique, Domingos Alfredo Torres tends to his flock of 1,500 chickens. The farmer fills watering and feed stations, ensuring that his chickens grow healthy and plump. They will be in his care for barely five weeks, but these animals represent an opportunity for…
Margaret Wambui Ngure used to consider dairy farming an inadequate way to earn a living. No matter how hard they tried, Margaret and her husband couldn’t turn a sustainable profit with their herd of indigenous cattle. Traditional breeds often produce as little as one gallon per cow per day,…
“The year 2002 was the hardest of our lives,” Cecilia Kapinga recalls. Her oldest daughter was sick and needed an operation that cost the family their entire annual income. To allow their daughter to finish high school, Cecilia and her husband Filoteus were forced to sell off all their livestock,…
Baby corn, beans, zucchini and sugar snap peas sprout on a farm in the mountains of Swaziland. But there’s much more than produce growing here. Sdemane Farming’s contract to supply a major South African supermarket chain is sowing hope for a brighter future in this impoverished community. When Themba Dlamini…
For 17-year-old Percy Shongwe and his two younger siblings, honey is a ticket to an education. They supply Swaziland’s Eswatini Kitchen with honey from their more than 50 beehives. Beekeeping and harvesting require only about 60 hours of work per year but give Percy and his siblings the opportunity…
