The accidental activist: How one woman became an advocate for women farmers in Senegal

The first time Korka Diaw ever heard that a woman could make a living at rice farming, back in 1991, she knew it was the career for her. What she didn’t know, she says now, was everything else.

With no collateral, getting a bank loan to purchase seeds and fertilizer seemed laughable; acquiring land, as a woman in rural Senegal, bordered on fantasy. But the local government finally allocated her a small, inferior plot, and she got to work.

After building a drip irrigation system and harvesting her first few crops, she started sharing her knowledge about farming techniques, access to finance and developing a business plan.

The appetite for information was so great that Diaw soon launched REFAN (the French acronym for Network of Women Farmers in the North of Senegal), a group that now numbers 16,000 women.

Its influence has been profound, says Olivier Buyoya, Regional Director, West Africa, International Finance Corporation (IFC). "REFAN's operating model generates employment and provides members with essential training and educational opportunities, leading to their financial independence," he says.

Through Baobab Group, an IFC client that offers financial inclusion services throughout West Africa, REFAN members can receive access to credit. The goal, Buyoya says, is to "empower more women farmers, enabling them to thrive despite the adversities they face".

Though Diaw never set out to be a national leader, she rose to the challenge because “I didn’t want anyone to go through what I went through”, she says.

Here are five things she learned on her way to becoming an advocate for women farmers.

Diaw started out as a trader, not a rice farmer. But she saw an opportunity to grow rice and it appealed to her because: “I’m part of a large family, and if you want to feed your family, you have to do it yourself.”

She overcame many obstacles as she expanded her farms and built processing facilities, and her companies now employ 40 people across Senegal. She acknowledges that farm work is very difficult, especially with the high temperatures and erratic rainfall attributed to climate change.

“We now plant in the ‘off’ season as well as during traditional times, although the traditional times are shifting to earlier and earlier, too,” she says. “We are constantly observing our environment so can adapt our techniques.”

Women farmers are traditionally overlooked and underfunded in Senegal so they must share information with each other, Diaw says.

That’s why she founded REFAN, a nationwide network that helps women farmers access financing, trains them in techniques to adapt to climate change, and negotiates better rates for inputs like high-quality seeds and fertilizer.

REFAN started as a resource for women rice farmers in northern Senegal. But as climate change began to affect Senegal’s fishing industry, leaving many fisherfolk unemployed and considering emigration, Diaw saw that agriculture could be a way to help them earn a living and stay in the country.

Membership in REFAN opened to fisherfolk and traders, and now 30% is comprised of non-farmers.

“If you want to ensure sustainable development, you have to involve young people,” Diaw says.

Part of the REFAN roadmap involves training 400 young women in agriculture – lessons that include advocacy, leadership, good government and business planning, as well as agricultural methods such as stock management and breeding.

After training them, REFAN tries to facilitate their access to land (which is traditionally an obstacle for women in Senegal) so they can create businesses with the property they acquire. Diaw also pursues partnerships with national and international organizations to help REFAN achieve its goals.

Last year, when REFAN membership grew to 16,000 women and demand for trainings soared, Diaw realized there were many women in the group that she and the local chapter chairs didn’t personally know.

That was very different than in the group’s early years, when REFAN could closely tailor its offerings to members’ requests. So Diaw and the chapter chairs decided to freeze membership.

This allowed the board of directors and local chairs to assess farmers’ needs, evaluate the effectiveness of REFAN’s offerings, and create a roadmap for the future. After about a year, membership reopened with a new database to track and fulfil members’ needs.

Diaw acknowledges that the life of a woman farmer in Senegal is not easy. Some of the challenges are logistical: “I used to have to ride in a cart, then find someone to drive me in a car, then take another cart to get to my farm. Then I did it all again to get back home, where I cooked and cleaned and took care of my household. It was very hard.”

Other challenges relate to women’s place in Senegalese culture, and the structural barriers to accessing land and financing. “[Back in 1991] when I began, no women were involved in farming. I asked for a state allocation of land, but as I am a lady, they were reluctant to give me favorable land because they thought I would fail.”

But she stuck with it, she says, because “I have a quality no-one counted on: endurance. I love what I do. It empowers me economically; it’s a revenue-earner. All I am today is thanks to rice farming.”

A version of this story was also published on the IFC website, along with another article on the women sowing Senegal's future.