Lead Organization:

FJC

Partner Organizations:

ZIMSOFF (Zimbabwe Smallholders Organic Farmers Forum, Zimbabwe): 19,000 members advancing agroecology, seed sovereignty, and gender equity. RWA Zambia (Rural Women’s Assembly, Zambia): Regional network advocating feminist leadership, food sovereignty, and environmental justice. ESAFF Uganda (Eastern & Southern Africa Small Scale Farmers Forum, Uganda): Smallholder farmers’ network driving agroecology and policy change. WAS/NSS (We Are the Solution / Nous Sommes La Solution, Senegal & Burkina Faso): Peasant women’s movement strengthening seeds, knowledge, and leadership across West Africa.

Countries:

Burkina Faso

Duration:

2/2025—11/2027

Overview:

African women smallholder farmers face intersecting challenges from climate change, corporate agriculture expansion, land dispossession, and monocropping. These pressures undermine soil fertility, reduce crop diversity, intensify pest outbreaks, and bring more frequent extreme weather events. Neglect of climate-resilient crops such as millet and sorghum worsens food insecurity, while women farmers continue to lack resources, recognition, and decision-making power. Legal and societal barriers restrict their access to land, education, and finance, and their knowledge is often excluded from agricultural planning processes. Despite these obstacles, peasant and indigenous women remain central to sustaining African food systems. They save and cultivate diverse indigenous seeds, safeguard genetic heritage, and organize for food sovereignty, ensuring that local agroecological practices continue to nourish families and communities.

The Nutritional African Foods Initiative (NAFI) builds on this foundation by generating science-based evidence of the critical role rural women play in maintaining resilient and nutritious food systems. Working in Burkina Faso, Senegal, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe, NAFI investigates how agroecological farming can strengthen livelihoods and food system resilience, assesses the nutritional value of local crops through both women’s empirical knowledge and laboratory analysis, and examines policies shaping seed and food sovereignty. It also tracks advocacy efforts resisting harmful regulations and promoting farmer-managed seed systems. In collaboration with African partners such as the Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa (AFSA) and the Africa Centre for Biodiversity (ACB), NAFI expands on earlier Women’s Seeds and Storytelling projects to deepen understanding of nutrition, address policy gaps, and elevate women’s leadership in shaping the future of food and climate resilience across Africa.

Grant Aims:

The Nutritional African Foods Initiative (NAFI) seeks to document and elevate the knowledge of rural African women farmers about local food plants, nutrition, and climate resilience. By combining empirical knowledge with scientific research, the initiative aims to strengthen food sovereignty, promote agroecology, and build evidence for the nutritional and cultural value of diverse local foods.

NAFI also aims to analyze policy barriers and opportunities, track the impacts of agroecological practices under climate change, and amplify women’s voices through strategic communications. The initiative will generate actionable evidence, advocacy tools, and stories that support farmer-led solutions, influence policies, and advance climate-resilient and equitable food systems across Africa.

Outputs and Outcomes:

Objective 1

  • Output: Conduct interviews and focus groups with 30 women farmers in five countries to document their knowledge and practices.

  • Outcome: Clear understanding of women’s empirical knowledge on nutrition, culture, and climate resilience of 10 local plant foods.

Objective 2

  • Output: Identify and track agroecological practices of 30 women farmers over 12 months, including responses to climate change.

  • Outcome: Evidence of how women adapt practices to climate impacts and the resulting effects on nutrition and productivity of local foods.

Objective 3

  • Output: Conduct food composition analysis of selected local plants and compare with women’s empirical knowledge.

  • Outcome: Scientific and empirical evidence on the nutritional value of women’s seeds, supporting advocacy for resilient local food systems.

Objective 4

  • Output: Research and publish a chapter and summary on seed laws in East and West Africa, and share findings widely.

  • Outcome: Greater awareness among rural women and stronger advocacy for equitable laws that protect farmer-managed seed systems.

Objective 5

  • Output: Develop and implement a communications strategy, producing diverse content for wide dissemination.

  • Outcome: Increased influence on farmers, policymakers, funders, and movements to support climate-resilient food systems and women’s rights.