Sowing Diversity = Harvesting Security by Centre for Agroecology, Water and Resilience

Sowing Diversity = Harvesting Security â&#x20AC;&#x153;in order that our seeds are not lostâ&#x20AC;?

Participatory visual methods to enhance women farmers’ seed security and local biodiversity in agroecological food systems Sowing Diversity = Harvesting Security (SD=HS) is a project to empower women in rural communities in West Africa and India to grow and use a wide range of nutritious crops that enhance their food sovereignty and nutrition security in the context of climate change. The overall objective of the SD=HS activities on Women, Seeds and Nutrition is to empower women to reclaim their role in food security through strengthening their capacity in seeds management and nutrition as well as global policy engagement to claim their right to food. The project partners are the Centre for Agroecology, Water and Resilience (CAWR) at Coventry University in the United Kingdom, the Convergence des femmes rurales pour la souveraineté alimentaire (COFERSA) in Mali, the Association des Producteurs de Semences Paysannes (ASPSP) in Senegal and the Deccan Development Society (DDS) in India. The partners have come together to work with horizontal networks of women farmers and support them in saving and producing seeds of locally adapted crops - such as millets, sorghum, fonio, pigeon pea, and cowpea as part of agroecological farming systems, and also in sharing knowledge about the use of wild edible plants. An additional feature is to facilitate women farmers’ active political engagement in influencing policies and institutions, from the local to the global level, in order to strengthen their right to food and reclaim Farmers’ Rights to agricultural biodiversity.

Recognizing that process is as important as content when it comes to empowerment, partners have committed to embracing Participatory Action Research (PAR) methodologies. The PAR approach values knowledge held by local communities and can be used as a means to support these communities to generate new knowledge. This happens through a process of collective enquiry based on iterative cycles of action-reflection-action. The PAR approach combines a range of methods and tools from different traditions and locations, and tailored to local needs. Two such tools employed in the project are the related participatory video (PV ) and community based film-making methods that enable women farmers to document and collectively reflect on their life and work during the course of the SD=HS project and beyond. Participatory video is used to capture key project activities, from trainings on subjects such as seedsaving, nutrition and agroecological farming practices, to citizen debates and community celebrations of biodiversity and food. In the PV method the filming itself is a learning process which forms an integral part of Farmer Platforms for Mutual Learning or Farmer Field Schools and other activities. In the SD=HS project the PV method has been designed to strengthen the capacity of horizontal networks of women farmers’ organisations in West Africa and India.

Our history of community-based film-making The Deccan Development Society’s (DDS) Community Media Trust has been training rural women in India since the 1990s in the use of video as a means to articulate their concerns, to reflect on those concerns with the aim of inducing change, and to communicate them to an external audience through visual expression. Making a film thus becomes a process of learning to speak up, to be heard, and to be counted. The first film made by the women farmers with DDS support is called Ten Women and a Camera. It is an account of their initial training experience. It looks at how the act and the process of film-making have impacted on women farmers and their lives. Here are some excerpts: Punyamma - Dalit single parent, non-literate from Zaheerabad, Telangana “Earlier I was busy with work and unconcerned with others. After becoming a film-maker I started understanding other people’s problems. I understand problems of my own community and also others by traveling to many places.” Laxmamma - Dalit farmworker, single parent, nonliterate from Humnapur, Telangana “Since I learnt filming people always welcome me. My relationships have grown. I feel very good now. I thought people like us cannot film. Now I know, everyone can.”

Chinna Narsamma - Single woman, Dalit farm labourer, non-literate from Pastapur, Telangana “We, who had no idea what a camera is, are now making our own films. I am also training women in film-making.

In Peru I trained rural women like us in camera work. If I did not learn video, could I have gone there?.... The camera has enhanced our relationship with communities. Our status has increased, we know more people.”

Our history of community-based film-making The women from the two African partners, the COFERSA in Mali and the ASPSP in Senegal, have seen the women farmers from the Indian partners using their cameras and filming at several international gatherings since 2006. First in 2006 at the Citizens’ Jury on GMOs and the Future of Farming held in Sikasso (Mali), and then again in 2007 and 2014 at the farmer exchanges for mutual learning held in Woloni (Mali) and then in Djimini (Senegal). These encounters have inspired the African women to begin their own filming processes with the support of the SD=HS project. Indian woman farmer videofilming the opening of the Citizens’ Jury on GMOs and the Future of Farming in Sikasso, Mali, January 2006 Video-filming of farmer learning exchange in Woloni, Mali, February 2007

Indian woman farmer filming at the Regional West African Seed Fair, Djimini, Senegal, March 2014

Empowering women through community-based film-making in the SD=HS project in India In the SD-HS project women film-makers of the DDS Community Media Trust have continued to actively document key events in their own life, the life of women sanghams (voluntary village level associations of the poor) and of the Deccan Development Society. They have captured key activities in the projectâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s focus on women, seeds and nutrition.

Participatory inventory of uncultivated edible plants Young women gather under a tamarind tree to conduct a participatory inventory of uncultivated edible plants they use to feed themselves and their families Pasthapur, India, October 2015

Empowering women through community-based film-making in the SD=HS project in India

Participatory inventory of uncultivated edible plants Women are collectively ranking the uncultivated edible plants according to benefits they identify. These benefits are: it is healthy; it gives you strength; it is good for lactating mothers and infants; it is tasty; it has medicinal properties; it is used in ceremonies; it is freely accessible Pasthapur, India, October 2015

Empowering women through community-based film-making in the SD=HS project in India

Farmer Mutual Learning Platforms in the millet fields Women are filming the farmers who are weeding their fields and also interacting with scientists fromÂ Krishi Vignyan Kendra (KVK) Farm Science Centre. These scientists are present to learn from women farmers aboutÂ natural pest management and agricultural biodiversity. Huligera in Telangana, August 2015

Empowering women through community-based film-making in the SD=HS project in India

Farmer Mutual Learning Platforms in the millet fields Women from the DDS document the knowledge of women farmers on biodiversity-rich agricultural practices. Huligera in Telangana, August 2015

Empowering women through community-based film-making in the SD=HS project in India

Strengthening horizontal networks of women farmers Women farmers from DDS are bonding in solidarity with women farmers from the Northeast Network as they share and document stories on the relevance of traditional seeds in their life and work. Nagaland, India, March 2016

Empowering women through community-based film-making in the SD=HS project in India

Strengthening horizontal networks of women farmers Women farmers from tribal communities celebrate Burlang Yatra, a traditional festival of seeds and biodiversity held in the village of Bikapunga, while women from the DDS film the event. Orissa, India, March 2016

Empowering women through community-based film-making in the SD=HS project in India The film ‘Cotton Reality’- produced by the women film-makers of the DDS Community Media Trust as part of the SD=HS project - shows how women farmers growing locally adapted and drought resistant crops like millets and other plants are able to feed themselves and their families. As DDS describe in their introduction to the film on You Tube: “Meedoddi Vinoda in Nagwar village, Raikode Mandal grows 18 different crops on her 3 acres of land despite the unfavorable climatic conditions. She uses her own seeds and manure. Adjacent to her field is the farm of Tenugu Yadaiah who grows Bt cotton as a single crop. He buys seed, manure and pesticides from the external market. His farm fails to provide him with food or fodder for his cattle, making him completely dependent on external sources for all of these. In contrast, Vinoda grows sufficient food (sorghum, millets. pulses, oil seeds…) for her whole family for an entire year making her completely self-sufficient. The story of Vinoda and Yadaiah reflects the current situation of Telangana farmers as a whole. One story talks about self- confidence, regeneration of life, and hope. The other story about the hopelessness, dependency and desperation: cotton cash crop farming has all too often led farmers to become indebted and commit suicide.”

Empowering women through community-based film-making in the SD=HS project in West Africa Inspired by their sisters in India and thanks to the SD=HS project, women from the COFERSA in Mali and the ASPSP in Senegal have seized the opportunity in 2015 to learn how to use video cameras and experiment with community-based film-making.

First training workshop on participatory video Fifteen women from Mali and Senegal gather for a first training workshop on participatory video facilitated by Anne Berson, CAWR video trainer and expert in farmersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; seed systems in West Africa SĂŠgou, Mali, April 2015