A Niger woman makes her garden grow despite extreme weather

DW (English)

Floods and drought have not stopped one Niger woman from producing delicious sustainable produce in her market garden. The circular economy approach that she uses is still unusual. But she's making it work against the odds.

Transcript

00:00She has created a little paradise,

00:04resting two hectares of greenery from the sands of the village of Tondibia,

00:09northwest of Niger's capital near May.

00:13Her real name is Adum Rose Kenum, but everyone here

00:17calls her Tanti Rose. For the past 15 years she has been cultivating this

00:21piece of land but

00:23in a unique way.

00:29I chose to pursue agroecology

00:34simply to protect the environment because this method

00:37allows all the creatures we care for,

00:43such as animals, living beings and people

00:47to live in perfect symbiosis.

00:52Still an exceptional approach in Niger.

00:57There are almost 15 million hectares farmland covering just 12 percent of the

01:02Sahel country's surface area,

01:04even though 80 percent of the population depends on their gardens

01:07or small farms for food.

01:14Tanti Rose's garden is an example of the circular economy.

01:18She discards nothing. She feeds plant scraps

01:22to her chickens which in turn help her produce organic fertilizer.

01:27Two compost heaps are turning into soil nutrients on her land

01:31with tangible results. She harvests up to 300 kilos of lettuce

01:35a year.

01:40Every week her produce is sold at a small market in near May.

01:44Her customers love the pleasing fragrance of her fruit and herbs.

01:48The difference between her mint

01:51and the mint of the market there is enormous.

01:56When you just bring your hand close to your face,

01:58you're overwhelmed by its high quality.

02:04But her life's work was under threat by the end of August 2024.

02:09The great floods of the Niger River had reached her land and

02:13inundated her garden along the river.

02:15She was in the process of hiring two Bukinabe laborers

02:19when the catastrophe struck.

02:26When she came to pick me up, she asked me if I knew how to garden.

02:30I just told her, just give it a try and we'll see.

02:34When we got here, the water was rising

02:37and almost half the garden was flooded. But as you can see,

02:42the river has now receded a lot and since then

02:45we've started work.

02:49Adam Rose Kenom hasn't given up.

02:53The 50-year-old widow decided to turn a challenge into an opportunity

02:56and try something new.

03:05I used to grow tomatoes instead of rice.

03:07Unfortunately, this year with the floods and the water rising from the ground,

03:11I had to grow rice.

03:12So I'm waiting to see how it will turn out.

03:17While waiting for the rice to ripen, she pursues her other major project,

03:22not only planting food, but also processing it,

03:25such as a hibiscus drink called Bisap juice in West Africa.

03:30It's still on a small scale, but she's about to realize her dream.

03:35This is the factory that's under construction.

03:37The juice production plant, it's a small unit.

03:40It's not big.

03:42She invests everything she earns.

03:44Recently, she installed an irrigation system to show that planting and harvesting food

03:49is possible even when the rains don't come like they used to due to climate change.

03:54Her solution to that challenge is ecological farming.

03:58Tanti Rose has become exemplary.

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