In Nigeria’s Benue State in northern Nigeria, rural women are experimenting with new farming practices to cope with the effects of climate change while seeking to ease the burden of unpaid domestic work that limits the time they can devote to their farms and income-generating activities.
Every morning, even before the sun has fully risen, the women of Ancha already know what lies ahead.
They must fetch water for cooking, drinking, washing clothes and caring for their children. In this community in Makurdi Local Government Area, some women once walked several kilometres to reach a stagnant pond, sometimes shared with livestock.
“The burden usually falls on women,” said Nyigwa Elizabeth, a beneficiary of the Benue Women Driving Climate Resilience in Agriculture (BWDCRiA) project.
Some set out with a young child strapped to their backs. Others had to wait until early morning or late afternoon when the sun was less intense.
This daily chore not only consumed their time. It also affected their health and well-being, as well as their ability to engage in farming, income-generating activities and training programmes.
Today, however, the situation has changed. Following advocacy efforts led by Galore Public Health Initiatives, the organisation behind the BWDCRiA project, the Ancha community secured a solar-powered borehole.
“Today, we no longer have to travel long distances to fetch water,” Elizabeth said.
Access to water is only one aspect of the transformation taking place in these rural communities. Launched in 2025, the BWDCRiA project has directly reached 200 women farmers across five communities in Benue State: Agasha, Ancha, Auke, Mbaityough and Mbaiwar.
In each community, a women-led cooperative was established, bringing together 40 women and 10 men. Through these cooperatives, women learn how to adapt their farming practices to the changing climate, protect their soils and reduce their dependence on chemical inputs.
Farming differently:
In Agasha, Ortwer Ternenge said she discovered new ways of protecting her crops. She learned, among other things, that yam mounds can be covered with grass to prevent excessive heat from damaging the tubers.
She also learned how to prepare treatments using neem leaves and seeds. Once boiled and cooled, the extract can be used to protect crops against certain pests.
“We learned how to manage our crops when pests and diseases cause losses,” she said.
The training extended beyond natural pesticides. Women farmers also learned how to produce compost from locally available materials, including cattle, poultry and rabbit manure.
For Ortwer, it represents a way of reconnecting with traditional agricultural practices, while adapting them to current challenges.
“We learned to revisit our history and the way our ancestors used organic fertilisers,” she said.
For Tyoyue Priscilla, another beneficiary in Agasha, one of the most important lessons came from a resource that had long been right before her eyes: goat manure.
That year, she collected it, crushed it, mixed it with ash and applied it to her onions. The results surprised her.
While many farmers around her recorded poor yields, her onions produced large bulbs.
“People kept asking me what I had used to grow such large onions,” she recalled.
At first, she kept the secret to herself, wondering if she admitted that she had used goat manure, it might have exposed her to some form of ridicule.
“They would have said I was a poor woman who could not even afford urea fertiliser and that was why I was using goat manure.”
But attitudes have changed:
Priscilla now stores goat manure in a sack at home in preparation for the next farming season. More importantly, she shares the knowledge with other members of her cooperative.
“Goat manure is really very useful,” she said.
Behind her story lies one of the project’s broader objectives: helping women become knowledge-sharing agents within their communities.
In Mbaityough, in Buruku Local Government Area, Blessing Gbazan also learned to understand a practice she had previously observed without fully appreciating its benefits.
A neighbour had arranged about 20 sacks filled with humus around a tree in his compound.
“I wondered why he was wasting so many sacks,” she recalled.
She continued watching. Then the yams began to grow.
The plants occupied far less space than in a traditional field and most importantly, required very little weeding.
“The yams were really beautiful and the harvest was abundant,” she said.
The training she received through the BWDCRiA project helped her understand that this was a climate-smart agricultural practice.
For these women, the goal is not simply to produce more. It is also to identify techniques that require fewer resources and can be replicated using locally available materials.
In Ancha, Ayoosu, Caroline had long regarded pests as a threat that was difficult to control.
Insects attacked leaves and fruits and could destroy a significant portion of the harvests. Chemical pesticides offered a solution, but their cost reduced farmers’ incomes. Caroline was also concerned about their potential effects on crops, health and the environment.
The BWDCRiA training introduced her to another approach.
She now prepares organic pesticides from Neem leaves and seeds.
“I no longer feel powerless when pests appear in my field,” she said.
On her sesame plot, she reported fewer infestations and healthier crops.
The change also reflects a shift in how women perceive their own capabilities.
They are no longer merely recipients of agricultural inputs. They are learning to produce, experiment and pass on knowledge.
The project distributed 500 palm seedlings, roughly 100 per community across the five participating communities. It also provided 225 litres of organic fertiliser and 200 bags of 25-kilogramme soybean seeds adapted to local climatic conditions.
Community leaders further allocated 20 hectares of land to the five cooperatives. The plots were geo-referenced and the cooperatives formally registered with the authorities.
For Galore Public Health Initiatives, climate resilience cannot be separated from another reality: the time women spend on domestic and care work.
Baseline data collected by the project in Benue State showed that 86 per cent of women spent more than five hours a day on unpaid domestic work.
In the five communities located in local government areas identified as the most vulnerable to climate change, the survey found that 91 per cent of women devoted more than five hours a day to unpaid domestic work, while 35 per cent spent over seven hours.
Productive activities and care responsibilities therefore intertwine throughout the day, with no clear boundary between the two.
The project aims to reduce women’s unpaid domestic and care workload by 20 per cent by the end of its implementation.
To achieve this, the cooperatives have established community childcare arrangements.
Ortwer has experienced the benefits firsthand.
“When we go to the farm, we can find a suitable place to leave our children, with someone available to look after them,” she said.
For mothers, the advantage is straightforward: they can work for several hours without constantly monitoring their children.
“It gives us enough time for our farming activities and other engagements,” she added.
Care work — looking after children, older people and dependants, while managing household responsibilities — is therefore a central component of the project.
The objective is to ensure that efforts to combat climate change do not become an additional burden placed on women.
The project extends beyond the fields. Galore PHI is also conducting advocacy initiatives aimed at ensuring that the concerns of rural women are reflected in agricultural, climate and social policies.
In April 2026, the organisation reached 1,000 community members through awareness campaigns on gender issues and the sharing of domestic responsibilities. That figure is expected to increase in the coming months.
Forty men have also received training in cooperative leadership and climate-smart agriculture.
ARD/ac/lb/gik/APA