![]() More than 4,000 mostly women farmers are benefiting from its cash-based peacebuilding programme, to create and maintain irrigation schemes on 890 hectares of inland valley swamps. WFP is working with groups such as Mamie’s in six districts and 113 communities. Farmers typically rely on shifting, upland agriculture, characterized by low yields and environmental damage. But due to limited technical knowledge and the labour intensity required to develop irrigations systems, most swamps have been abandoned. Sierra Leone is also naturally endowed with inland valley swamps, a high-potential ecosystem that, used effectively, can provide agricultural yields that result in food self-sufficiency. Moyamba district is a major source of the rutile in addition to bauxite. Sierra Leone has the largest deposits of rutile in the world – the mineral is used in the manufacturing of ceramics, paint, plastics and even food products that require a bright white colour. ![]() Mamie's association consists mainly of widows or single mums who are determined to succeed so they can feed their families. Staff buses belonging to a big mining company crisscross the area all day at night, floodlights silhouette a processing plant. Matagelema is situated about 1km away from a rural trading centre called Moriba, which owes its existence to the mining industry. we are determined to succeed so that we can feed our families.” Most of the group members are widows or single mums, and almost all of us raise our own as well as relatives’ children. We come together and agree on how to distribute our tasks and how many days and hours in a week to work under WFP’s programme. She adds: “There is no more commotion now. About 150 of us women decided to form Manumuma Women’s Farmers’ Association in 2020 and establish ourselves here in Matagelema.” They were mining in the very place we cultivated, thereby reducing our farming space. Mamie Achion, the coordinator of the group, says: “We were forced to abandon our initial farms because of conflict with miners. If they are not planting, they are weeding their crops or building and repairing bunds and canals that the World Food Programme (WFP) and Government are assisting them to set up simple irrigation schemes that will boost their yields. The mid-mornings of Matagelema village, in the south of Sierra Leone's Moyamba district, often find the local women ankle-deep inside large rice fields. ![]() Mamie is among women farmer from Matagelema village who found themselves at odds with the interests of the mining trade.
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