Rural women are ready to set up agroecology and food sovereignty ; such is the chosen theme for this year celebrations for the RWA members in Madagascar who came across the 8 regions where the organisation has its roots ; from North to South ; from West to East and the highlands in the centre as well. Held in a rural city 35 km away from the downtown of Antananarivo, the capital of Madagascar.
Being guardians of lands, seeds ; water and life ; rural women are more than ever aware and involved in their roles to fight practices that infringe their rights as such.
Among these practices is top ranked land-grabbing faced by girls and women from their birth since they are not entitled to family heritage and then perpetuated by transnationals and large companies.
The scale of this phenomenon is exacerbated by food imperialism which is to undermine small scale farmers production and the traditional system of production.
This constitutes a big challenge for the RWA members in Madagascar since local seeds are becoming
scarce due to the monopolisation of the market by transnationals and the promotion of hybrid seeds that tend towards infinite.
Establishing good practices to overcome the harmful ones pass through agroecology which puts the emphasis on the right to say NO to chemicals, pesticides and monoculture.
The International Rural Women Day is in this momentum a great opportunity to showcase what are Nature Based Solutions such as lombricompostage, polyculture and family farming as well.
Rural Women's Assembly 