How Four Sisters are Fighting Climate Change and Inequality in Zambia

In Zambia’s drought-ridden fields, an old woman kneels upon the earth, her fingers tracing the dry soil. In her hands, skin weathered by wisdom and countless harvests, she cradles a black-eyed pea seed. Clare Sianga knows the power of this single seed, the promise it holds for tomorrow’s yield.

72-year-old Clare is the eldest in her family and grew up with 12 younger siblings. Only four of her sisters are still alive today.

After her siblings passed away, Clare opened her home and welcomed their orphaned sons and daughters. Together with her three sisters, she supports nine children.

This past year has been especially difficult for Clare due to the widespread drought in Zambia. Declared a national disaster in February, the crisis has destroyed countless fields and threatened the livelihoods of farmers.

“Our crops completely dried up and we had nothing to harvest,” says Clare. “During that time, there were many days where we couldn’t get food and had nothing to eat.”

She fears that her harvest won’t be big enough to feed her children. “The burden is huge,” Clare says. “We each pitch in to raise the children. We want all of them to be educated, we want them to be dependable and reliable people.”

The four sisters are close. Each farming season, which spans from November to March, they meet at their family farm.

In the midst of grassy, rolling hills sits the old farmhouse where they grew up. Clare, Amukusana, Silondiso, and Wamui have been meeting here for 25 years, tending to cassava, groundnuts, corn, and rice.

Clare’s family lives in the Senanga District, where 78% of the population live below the poverty line, or on less than $2 per day. Women bear the brunt of this crisis. Zambia is a predominately patriarchal society, and customs often impede women from breaking out of traditional roles. Many women marry young and have multiple children—in fact, only 35% of women in Zambia have access to family planning.

Female farmers like Clare face even more difficulties. In Zambia, cultural and legal barriers prevent most women from owning land. With little land, women have a harder time growing and harvesting their crops. Women also have less access to essential resources such as credit, fertilizers, seeds, and agricultural training. These disparities are all too common, and women like Clare struggle to feed and support their children and themselves.

Agricultural production has been doubly hard for female farmers in the last decade. Climate change has led to severe weather in Zambia, further exacerbating inequity. Last year, floods led to a massive cholera outbreak. Today, the drought poses unimaginable dangers, but no rainfall is in sight.

“Climate change is a phenomenon we can’t really run away from,” says Temwani Ngoma, the Acting District Agricultural Coordinator for Senanga District. “We’ve seen dry spells, we’ve seen floods. These adverse weather patterns are really affecting our farmers’ production. This is why we’ve been encouraging them to plant drought- resistant seeds.”

As climate-induced hunger levels rose, Action Against Hunger stepped in to launch an agricultural project focused on drought-resistant crops like black-eyed peas, known in Zambia as cowpeas. The teams have been working tirelessly alongside Clare and her community to provide vital support and assistance.

“We considered that the types of crops that the farmers were growing might not survive in the harsh conditions,” says Mary Khozi, Action Against Hunger’s Country Director for Zambia. “In 2022 at the outset of the project, the community selected five value chains that they wanted to try out; corn, sorghum, groundnuts, cassava, and black-eyed peas. Out of those five crops, only black-eyed peas and sorghum thrived. The other crops were severely and negatively impacted by the lack of rainfall.”

Over 1,280 farmers like Clare enrolled in Action Against Hunger’s black-eyed pea project. Action Against Hunger team members distributed black-eyed pea seeds and fertilizers, as well as hosted a variety of trainings on climate-smart agriculture techniques.

The project aimed to empower farmers like Clare and educate women on farming equality. “We knew that we wanted our project to help close the gender gap, especially when female farmers in Zambia face daily challenges,” says Khozi. “We have been very deliberate with our enrollments, ensuring that there is an equal balance of men and women on the program.”

The project was committed to spreading awareness about gender disparities. That’s why the most active and engaged farmers are now women, says Khozi.

The Sianga sisters each inherited their own hectare of land from their late father. When he died, Clare was living in an urban area and in an unhappy marriage. She decided to return to her childhood home and take up farming.

As the drought tightens its grip on Senanga, Clare and her sisters are forced to confront the harsh realities of climate change. They till the land, cultivating black-eyed peas in the hopes of a modest harvest to sustain them throughout the rest of the year.

“At least with black-eyed peas, we always have something to feed our family,” says Clare. “We eat it as a side dish, and we make biscuits and other nutritious snacks from it. If our harvest is bountiful, we will be able to sell our produce on the market. We can then use that money to buy more varied and nutritious foods.”

For now, Clare is praying that the crop will bring them good fortune and help to see them through the difficult year ahead. “We are really grateful to Action Against Hunger for coming, because the support will help us,” she says.

Despite their hardship, the Sianga sisters find reason to rejoice every day. They dance and sing, their voices rising in harmony, and each step of their synchronized rhythm transforming their struggles into a celebration of life’s enduring vitality.

As the sun sets on another day in Senanga, Clare and her sisters stand as a testament to the indomitable spirit of women farmers everywhere. With their unwavering resolve and determination, they defy the odds. As they continue to toil the land, they do so not just for themselves, but for future generations of women who dream of a better tomorrow.

Action Against Hunger in Zambia

Action Against Hunger’s climate resiliency program in Zambia is designed to mitigate and prepare for the impact of climate change over the next ten years. In the Western Province, Action Against Hunger is building a climate-smart network that will help farmers grow drought-resistant crops like cowpeas.

Our teams work alongside community members to strengthen irrigation systems; facilitate the planting and harvesting of crops; and build awareness around resource management, food preservation, water storage, and more. Staff will also work to strengthen the local economy and connect farmers to broader financial networks.