Publications
Sowing stories, cultivating equality | The seed bank of bottles and gourds: How a Kenyan farmer saved her grandmother's indigenous seeds (By Charity Mueni Ndivo, Kenya)
01/08/2026
Growing up in Makueni, Kenya, Charity learned from her grandmother to farm with indigenous seeds and practices she would later recognize as agroecology. Years later, watching soils lose their capacity to grow and local crop varieties disappear, she turned back to that knowledge. With little more than discarded iron sheets, sisal poles, liquor bottles and gourds, Charity built a seed bank to recover and protect indigenous varieties. 7 p.
Sowing stories, cultivating equality | From silence to voice: How banana peels, soured milk and curiosity grew a young Pakistani woman's confidence (By Maheen Riaz, Pakistan)
01/08/2026
Growing up on her family farm in Pakistan, Maheen did much of the work but had little say in the decisions. Inspired by the confidence her mother gained through a Farmer Field School, she began attending too - first listening, then questioning, experimenting and finding the courage to speak. Over time, Maheen became a farmer facilitator herself, learning that leadership is not about having all the answers, but about creating space for others to learn and be heard. 8 p.
Sowing stories, cultivating equality | The brittle stems: How a childhood spent among failing gardens led one woman into crop science (By Florence Adejole, Nigeria)
01/08/2026
As a child, Florence wandered into abandoned gardens, touching brittle stems and wilted leaves and wondering why the plants had died. Told that agriculture was beneath her, she chose crop science anyway. Years later, her research on compost and biochar takes her from laboratory to field, working with women farmers and searching for practical solutions for plant and soil health. 7 p.
Sowing stories, cultivating equality | Roots of resilience: How a friend's orchid, arriving six months after a baby was lost, grew into a women's cooperative in Saint James (By Audia Willie, Jamaica)
01/08/2026
Six months after losing her baby, a friend gives Audia a purple orchid. Caring for it gives her a reason to rise each morning, and slowly her veranda fills with green. Neighbouring women begin gathering there on Saturdays, bringing cuttings, seeds and stories of their own struggles. They plant kitchen gardens, share their harvests and eventually form a cooperative to sell together at the local market. 10 p.
Sowing stories, cultivating equality | My hands still know the soil: A woman farmer’s journey of resilience (By Beryl Oletha Seaton, Saint Kitts and Nevis)
01/08/2026
From childhood, Beryl found joy and belonging in the soil, and over the years farming became part of her identity and a refuge from everyday life. When an old injury left her unable to walk and she later lost her job, what frightened her most was the thought of losing the land she loved. Instead of asking whether she could continue, Beryl began asking what was still possible. 9 p.
Sowing stories, cultivating equality | The difference is small, but I can see it: How one farmer's careful coffee cherries changed a whole women's network on Mount Elgon (By Melanie Joyce Nabukwasi, Uganda)
01/08/2026
As an agricultural extension worker on the coffee farms of Mount Elgon, Melanie wondered why so much effort continued to yield little income. The answer came when she realized that the value of coffee depends not just on labor, but on knowledge. By teaching women farmers to select ripe cherries and improve their drying methods, she set in motion a transformation that at first seemed imperceptible. 10 p.
Sowing stories, cultivating equality |Counting sheep but still no sleep (By Anna Sperling, Italy)
01/08/2026
For two decades, Anna built her life around a small agropastoral farm in central Italy, deeply connected to the land and to the sheep she knew by name. When access to grazing land disappeared, she faced losing not only her livelihood, but a way of life, years of knowledge and part of her own identity. Refusing to let it all disappear, Anna has kept a small core herd and continues to preserve the skills and traditions she has nurtured over the years. 11 p.
Sowing stories, cultivating equality |Connecting to life: A journey of reconnection with our inner nature (By Ada Navarro Puche, Spain)
01/08/2026
Growing up in a forestry nursery, Ada developed an early connection with nature. Years later, feeling disconnected from her values in a corporate career, she found a new path through permaculture and regenerative agriculture. Together with her partner Víctor, she began restoring abandoned terraced land in Catalonia, Spain, bringing life back to the soil through careful water management, organic matter, biodiversity and farming. 9 p.