Salma Abdoulaye tackles unsustainable land management in Ghana
The “Fonio” plant helps the “disadvantaged” financially independent
The project helped 500 people to grow fonio.. Most of them are women.
From the source
Founder of the project: “Fonio is food for the earth and people, and a solution to the problem of food insecurity.”
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Salma Abdoulaye from Ghana empowers disadvantaged women, helping them provide for their families and gain financial independence by teaching them how to grow a wild native plant called fonio on abandoned lands.
Through Expo Live's support, which includes media coverage and financial and technical assistance, more than 1,500 women farmers in Ghana have improved their livelihoods thanks to the cultivation of this plant.
Abdoulaye, who grew up in an environment that did not allow women to own land and work in agriculture, said: “While I was in the hospital pregnant, a woman next to me had just given birth, and noticed that she was crying all day, only to find out later that her husband ran away, because he could not pay $ 2.5 per day to cover the medical expenses of his wife and their newborn.”
"We offered her a job at the fonio farm, and she agreed immediately, and for about four years she has been making a stable income, and this has enabled her to be self-reliant and send her children to school."
The Expo Live grant will help Abdoulaye make more marginal land suitable for growing fonio and other profitable crops.
Abdoulaye's Unique Quality Products Enterprise says it ensures women can benefit from the activities on an equal basis with men, despite being deprived of land, and provides training that is often unattainable to them to help them advance at work.
She adds that she is tackling food insecurity and unsustainable and irresponsible land management by helping landless women farmers who do not have access to fertile land.
Abdoulaye started her unique project with 10 landless women, and later she was able to support more than 500 farmers (350 women and 150 men), to produce raw fonio seeds.
Abdoulaye explains that the fonio plant can grow in less fertile soil, even during the drought period, and it can be harvested three times per season, noting that the gluten-free grain, rich in iron, amino acids, proteins and carbohydrates, and can meet the needs of people suffering from malnutrition, It contributes to improving their health.
The Foundation affirms that it seeks to build sustainable societies through the fonio plant, which nourishes the earth, people and society together, within an integrated approach that achieves benefit at all levels, noting that “the plant provides food for millions of people during the most difficult months of the year (from April to July). When other food resources are scarce.
And it continues that it continues to provide support to farmers, especially destitute women in vulnerable rural communities, which increases their income significantly, which leads to reducing their poverty levels, and makes them contribute to the development of their communities.
The Foundation encourages the production of fonio in degraded lands without using fertilizers, to renew the depleted soil, so that the production model provides space for future generations, pointing out that the cultivation of fonio reduces soil erosion.
Fonio grows well in dry conditions and poor soils, has multiple nutritional value and health benefits, and is a good addition to the diets of people who do not eat enough animal or protein-based foods.
It is considered a whole grain that helps control weight and gut health, and is linked to a large number of health benefits.
The Foundation focuses more on agriculture, sustainable livelihoods that ensure long-term agricultural activities, as well as healthy ecosystems, with minimal inputs for crop production.
It is reported that the institution is approved by the Food and Drug Authority, and standards standards in Ghana, and has obtained the certificate of high quality standards, and it continues to produce under strict sanitary conditions, meeting local and international standards.
Partnership Opportunities
The Expo Live program contributes to accelerating creative solutions, and is not limited to providing funding to innovators, but the winning recipients of funding get opportunities to establish partnerships, and communicate through networks with like-minded parties, where innovators are linked to networks from participating countries, commercial partners, and regional businesses. and global.
Expo Live, the Innovation Support Program for Social Impact from Expo 2020 Dubai, supports dozens of projects that have received “impact innovation grants”, those that work to find creative solutions to pressing challenges, with the aim of improving human lives and preserving the planet or both together.