When we, the Rural Women’s Assembly sisters from Tanzania, spoke during the Consultative Dialogue, we shared the realities of women who know the land, understand the changing seasons and continue to grow food even when the weather no longer follows familiar patterns. We spoke about floods that destroy crops, droughts that leave the soil dry and difficult to cultivate, and the daily pressure we face when we must still find a way to feed our families despite these challenges. But our story was not only about hardship. It was also about the determination of rural women who are already finding practical ways to respond.
“For us, seeds mean independence. We protect our cultural heritage,” one of our sisters shared. For us, seeds are not simply something planted at the beginning of the farming season. They are food, identity, resilience and freedom from dependence on expensive outside inputs. Saving and sharing seed is also a way of protecting the knowledge passed down through generations and ensuring that our communities can continue to feed themselves, even during difficult times.
During the climate speak out, we described the challenges women face when floods and droughts affect the same communities, often within the same year. Many of us have limited access to training on agroecology, organic fertiliser production and soil management, while financial exclusion makes it difficult to expand our farming activities or invest in tools that could reduce our workload. We also spoke honestly about being left out of important discussions, even when policies and programmes directly affect our land, food and livelihoods. “Our government comes to us with solutions. We are not involved in decision-making,” one sister explained.
We do not lack knowledge or ideas. Too often, however, we are expected to implement policies designed by others without being given the opportunity to shape those policies ourselves. We understand the soil we work on, the crops that survive in our communities and the ways climate change is affecting our households. Our knowledge should not only be recognised during meetings and celebrations. It must guide agricultural planning, climate adaptation programmes and public investment.
Despite these challenges, we also shared the ways we are taking action. Rural Women’s Assembly Tanzania is learning to produce organic fertiliser, strengthening agroecological farming practices and working towards expanding community seed banking. We are moving from small-scale efforts towards broader community learning because we cannot wait for outside solutions before we begin building alternatives ourselves.
One of the important developments we shared during the dialogue was that the government had allocated seven acres of land to the Rural Women’s Assembly for farming and seed banking. “Our government gives us, the Rural Women’s Assembly, seven acres to grow. They are helping us to build our seed banking,” shared Manana from Tanzania. This is an important achievement and a sign of what can happen when women organise collectively and engage government with clear demands. At the same time, we know that land alone cannot transform women’s lives. Land must come with access to water, training, infrastructure, finance, markets and the freedom for women to decide what we grow and how we use our harvest.
By the final day of the dialogue, we had listened to women from across Southern Africa speak about seeds protected by grandmothers, crops lost to cyclones, animals dying during droughts, markets that fail women farmers and policies that often leave rural communities behind. Our reflection captured the spirit of the gathering: “We are rich. We have a lot of knowledge and skill. Let us utilize them.”
We do not lack the ability to build resilient food systems. We already know how to save seed, produce food, care for soil, respond to changing weather and organise within our communities. What we need is stronger support for agroecology, practical training that reaches rural areas, seed banks owned and managed by communities, land with water, accessible finance and meaningful participation in decisions that affect our lives. We are showing that change does not always begin in government offices or policy documents. Sometimes it begins with women making organic fertiliser, sharing seed, learning together, building a seed bank and refusing to accept that our knowledge is less valuable than the solutions brought from outside.
