Celebrating African Rural Women

Over millennia, women in most African traditions have played a central role in selecting, storing, and enhancing the diversity of their seeds. To produce food for their families in varying conditions, they developed a sophisticated capacity to understand their ecosystem and the climate, accurately calculating what to plant in the coming season.

The complexity of this knowledge system, the intimate relationship that rural women tend to have with land and seed, and their understanding of the range of needs of the family and the community cannot be underestimated. It has evolved over generations.

This knowledge lies at the heart of women’s continuing role in building resilience and status in the community. The chapters encapsulate how women are custodians of seed and food diversity; how women have been systematically undermined throughout the colonial, post-colonial, and globalisation processes. Finally, gives a way forward in restoring women’s traditional knowledge and leadership for resilience.