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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