It’s mid-morning in Nyambege village in Siaya County and Veronica Akinyi is bee-bust tendering her flowering groundnuts crop.

She has been a groundnuts farmer since 2017, a venture she says serves her subsistence needs more than business purposes.

At the age of 63, Ms Akinyi says she has largely lived her life as a mixed crop farmer, mainly growing maize, beans and indigenous vegetables until she added groundnuts to this list.

“I have been a farmer for about 40 years now, and I have watched my children grow as I feed them from the farm. Now I am feeding my grandchildren through the same venture,” says Ms Akinyi.

A small holder farmer, Ms Akinyi owns one acre of land and hires another one-and-a-half acres in the neighbourhood in a bid to expand her production space.

This way, she says, she is able to produce enough for herself and her grandchildren and a little for sale.

Challenges

Like many farmers, she is often faced by challenges such as unpredictable weather patterns occasioned by climate change and lack of enough capital to buy farm inputs among others.

Her challenges resonate with those faced by many women in rural areas, especially in the developing world.

It is the efforts, determination, hard work and resilience of such women which is celebrated every year on October 15, during the International Day for Rural Women (IDRW).

The day is specially dedicated to millions of women who live in remote rural areas and celebrates their contributions and achievements towards agriculture and rural development.

This year, the theme for IDRW is ‘Rural women rise and claim your basic right to sustainable development’. This is in line with the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Empowering women

As part of empowering women and enhancing food safety and market access for selected Kenyan produce, the European Union (EU) has funded the Market Access Upgrade Program (Markup) Kenya.

The programme, which was launched in 2019, is implemented by the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (Unido) in partnership with the government and the private sector.

“We recognise the efforts by Markup Kenya in training women across counties especially on global good agricultural practices (GAP), food safety and group dynamics and good governance,” said Mr David Somollo, a Siaya County crops officer.

He added that women account for more than 70 per cent of producers in the county, a reflection of the high contribution by women to the agriculture sector across counties.

Farmers trained

Out of the 180 farmers trained in the county by Markup Kenya, Mr Somollo said 40 per cent are women.

Markup Kenya knowledge management and communication expert Christine Misiko said out of the almost 1,500 farmers so far trained on GAP in different counties, 43 per cent of them are women.

Additionally, of the nearly 700 farmers trained on group dynamics and good governance, 50 per cent are women.

In June, and in tandem with the World Food Safety Day, women were almost 50 per cent of the about 300 beneficiaries from Homa Bay, Siaya and Busia counties who were trained on aflatoxins control and management.

In Embu, Makueni and Machakos counties, women and the youth were among beneficiaries of training on clean planting material for the mango value chain.

Family diets

“Markup Kenya is keen on working with women and youth. Women play a key role in deciding family diets, while young people have many opportunities in the agriculture sector,” noted Ms Misiko.

She urged women in rural areas to take up their role in enhancing sustainable development.

Ms Misiko added that women empowerment calls for joint efforts from the government, policy makers and development partners among other stakeholders.

As a rural woman herself, Ms Akinyi urges the younger generation to embrace agriculture, saying that it is an equally, maybe more rewarding sector than white collar jobs.

She says women should cease from concentrating on household chores while they solely depend on men to provide for families as the hard economic times demand for a combined effort.

By Rachel Kibui