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(This project is currently mid post-production and this is a preview)
Harvest would normally be less than a month away at this time, but the beans in Purity’s field have just begun sprouting. She has planted them late, because about half of her fields were flooded in the heavy rainfalls during the last few months. The potatoes are still alive, but they are yet so small that they fall between the fingers.
The recorded rainfall in central Kenya during the last rain season has been one of the highest over the past 40 years.
Purity and her friend Beatrice are both managers and workers in their husbands farms, and therefore they are the first persons in the families to notice the changes in the climate. And since they are the primary responsibles for the households and their children as well, they will be the ones who have to make the hard decisions which are probably coming.
Harvest will probably be bad across the region, which means that markets will be pressured and prices will rise. So Purity and Beatrice still have a chance to secure their income for the next half year. If they don't, on the other hand, the high prices will make it very hard for them to afford basic necessities for themselves and their kids.
Adapting to climate change is crucial to survival for Beatrice, Purity and Paulina. The land they cultivate is not only their direct source of food and income; They land facilitates their in lives.
While direct impact like a flooding doesn't distinguish between genders, several factors show that women are more vulnerable to indirect consequences than men are.
For example, an African study shows that while heat waves are correlated with reduced hours worked in agriculture, this impact is 40 percent lower if the farmer is female. Another example is that girls may face a greater risk of being pulled out of school than boys when the demand for family labour increases as a consequence of climate shocks.
In a recent UN report, 49% of female replicants who work in agriculture across the world classified their employtment as “contributing family workers”. This means that they are employed in an agricultural business owned by a family member.
In Kenya, 24.6% of women have ownership over land, but only 3.1% of them own land alone.
Having joint ownership over land doesn't always mean having decision-power over the management of the land, how the revenue from the land is utilized or the right to sell or transfer the land.
Kenya is one of the countries that have adapted legislation on gender equality in land rights and ownership. However, there seems to be a difference between formal land laws and the reality
for Purity, Beatrice and Paulina.
In the doughnut graph, statistics from Food and Agriculture Organization of The United Nations show how many of each gender have which employment devided by regions. It includes 107 countries, but has a majority of replicants from Asia and Africa. Therefore, the worldwide averages are biased towards the numbers for those regions. The regional averages represent simple means across the countries and are weighted by the total number of landholders in each country.
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Beatrice and Purity don't have many options but to carry a large burden of the consequences of the changing weather conditions. They have to find solutions for themselves, their children and the communities, and they are held responsible for those solutions.
With almost no ownings and very little access to money, this position is impossible to step out for Purity and Beatrice.
They know that seeing their plants thrive means that life is present on the land. If they can facilitate life on the land, the land can facilitate their lives. They are the connections between the land and the community that they live in.
This project is currently in post-production and will turn into a web-ducumentary serving educational purposes.
The project is made by director and human ecologist Josephine Lau Jessen and producer and photojournalist Emil Hougaard Bertelsen.
The project is supported financially by DANIDA's Information and Engagement Grant.