Returnees grow their own food

Mariam Abdalla worked on the farm, bit by bit, systematically pulling out weeds sprouting next to vegetables planted on the two-hectare piece of land.
Occasionally, she wiped her damp brow as she sweated in the sweltering heat. A dozen other women concentrated on the task at hand: dig, water, weed and pass the hoe.

Where there had been only sand and rock three years ago, green vegetables blossomed under the blistering sun.

“I enjoy working on this farm,” said Mariam with an easy smile. “I get free vegetables here.”

Mariam is among 60 formerly displaced women who run a vegetable farm at Galdi village, 35 kilometres southeast of Nyala town, the capital of South Darfur.

The village is one of a few relatively peaceful pockets of war-torn South Darfur and home to about 10,000 returnees from internally displaced persons’ camps.

Three years ago, Mariam was an IDP at Mosey camp, on the edge of Nyala, and had no way of producing her own food.

She was among the 3.8 million people who rely on regular food rations in Darfur. “The food used to run out quickly. Life at the camp was very tough,” she said.

After living at the camp for a year, a sense of calm returned to Mariam’s village.

She and others found their way back to their homesteads and got down to the task of rebuilding livelihoods disrupted by conflict.

Since leaving the IDP camps, the returnees in Galdi and other relatively peaceful hamlets are striving to wean themselves from food rations and other relief supplies.

“Our families get their food from here,” Mariam said as she worked away at the vegetable farm supported by World Vision. The returnee women grow watermelon, okra, onions and tomatoes among other local vegetables.

The women consume some of the farm’s harvests and sell some at the local market and in Nyala. Barring any hitches, they could scrape together as much as $10,000 in profits this year if the farm’s current crop of vegetables sells well.

The farm has conferred pride and respect on the formerly displaced women, who have borne the heaviest brunt of the Darfur crisis.

In three short years, they have moved from receiving food handouts to producing food for sale at local markets. Their lives, once upended by the crisis, seem to be back on course.

As the planting season nears in Darfur, many are tilling their farms and hoping for a bountiful harvest that will continue to keep them off the meagre relief food rations offered by aid agencies.