Farming with machete preserves our health, Ivory Coast women farmers reveal

By Bisola Adeyemo

In the effort to gain financial independence in Ivory Coast, female farmers have turned to organic farmers by desisting from using chemicals in farms.

Now they go to the fields with machetes and dabas (a traditional African hoe) to farm their produce, saying that it preserves their health and traditions.

One of the female farmers said “We’ve thrown out the chemicals. We don’t pump chemicals on crops anymore. We don’t eat vegetables from crops that have touched chemicals. Now we work with our hands”

Agathe Vanié, President of the women’s agricultural cooperative, praises the commercial success of crops from these ecological and ethical plantations.

“Before, we did not treat the soil (with chemicals). But at some point this practice was introduced in agriculture and we lost the local rice from the past. We thought about it. I called my friends, I said no.

“We need to raise awareness in the field, and at the same time we need to talk about cocoa, we need to talk about our food, because that’s what keeps us going, so we need to raise awareness amongst women so that they don’t treat the soil with chemicals,” the President said.

The product quality is making a breakthrough in rural Côte d’Ivoire where the poverty rate in the agricultural sector is around 60% according to official statistics.