From our special correspondent in Somaliland,
Somewhere in a small area in the Horn of Africa there is a farm where vegetables grow. Not really usual in the area, because in Somaliland, the inhabitants are more involved in livestock than in market gardening. And yet, there are three hundred of them here, learning to use the pickaxe and the art of growing tomatoes in the desert, or almost.
Aisha Abdi, 28, is one of them. Living for several years in a camp for displaced people in the village of Wadamago, in the Aynabo region, in the south-east of the country, she was forced to leave her home following major droughts. His lands had become uninhabitable.
Only 13% of arable land
“When peopleOxfam asked me to participate in this project a little over nine months ago, I didn’t really believe it. And then finally, together, we managed to set up this cooperative farm and turn it into a real business,” she says, with a smile on her face and a pickaxe in her hand.
The young woman can, today, make a living from her activity. Because once harvested, the vegetables are then sold at the market right next door. And the money earned, redistributed to the farmers on the farm.
The lands of Somaliland nevertheless remain very difficult to work. Previously nicknamed “green Somalia” because there were cereal fields in certain places, this part of the country now bears the scars of several years in a row of major droughts. In total, only 13% of land would be cultivable.*
According to a report fromFAO Swalim