The month of October is where rural women should be celebrating the role they play in feeding families healthy food. The International Day of Rural Women (IDRW) came after the realization that the world celebrates the world food day but forgets about the hands of the farmers which are the rural women. The aim of the IDRW was to acknowledge the role played by rural women in feeding families healthy food.

This is the month where in the past farmers would be busy cultivating the land. But the damage that had been done by human activities has ruined the weather patterns to extreme levels, up to date in Swaziland there has not been any rains that would enable farmers to start farming. Countries always go to the United Nation climate change conference popularly known as COP to make decisions that they will never fulfill or even attempt to do in terms of emission. This becomes a setback for a farmer because if the emissions continue there are uncertainties in the farming timeline. Secondly if it happens there are rain, they become too much and cause floods in the fields. 

On another note if the sun heats very hard and the farmer loses. All these effects of climate hit hard on women as they are the majority in the agriculture sector. Their seeds get lost due to plants dying before the produce can be attained. Water scarcity expose women to dangers like being raped or even kills. It is high time that the issue of climate change becomes everybody’s business in order to ensure food security and sovereignty. The capitalist who are the most polluters keep ignoring the reality. 

It is important that each one plays a role in the crisis the world is facing so that we are able to reduce the emission before nature swallows all of us. It calls for the capitalist who owns big machinery which pollutes the earth to lead the efforts in reducing the emission.

Even with all this challenges the Swaziland Rural Women’s Assembly celebrated the IDRW in the Shiselweni region at KaGodloza community. The important event was celebrated after 3 days of rains and was attended by about 300 people including the Rural women group who were educated about climate change, Farmer Managed Seeds Systems, United Nation Declaration on the rights of Peasants. The day ended with seed sharing.