Katine is a tranquil pastoral county in northeastern Uganda. The only way of life in this village is farming. Their entire livelihood involves cattle. In the 1990s, a semi-nomadic tribe came down from the hills and stole the cattle. This posed a bigger difficulty for the women of the village since they do most of the farming. As in most rural agricultural systems, it is the females of the communities that till the land. Men are delegated as warriors or protectors of the villages, as well as hunters.
If people of Katine never heard of such agricultural conditions as soil nutrient depletion and crop rotation, so have they never known about climate change. All they know is what they observe: shifting weather patterns and unpredictable rains. There is, however, an ever-widening desertification in Africa. Many droughts have occurred in the neighboring areas of Katine, leading to acute water shortage. It has also grown much hotter in Katine. Now, no one can be certain when rains will come. These factors make farming difficult and the lives of the women even more grueling, as Katine is experiencing its first drought.
Today, Katine’s ecological problems impact its women the most. The soil is fast losing its nutrients, crop yields are scarcer, and women farmers overwork the land for desperate supply of food. Poverty has overcome the land. Women work harder on the farms, walking long distances to look for water. The men, on the other hand, have resorted to cut down the trees, dwindling in number because of the drought, to make into charcoal. Katine is on a downward spiral of poverty, hunger, and physical degradation, and it is the women of the land that feel these most.
Via guardian.co.uk
