Cattle & Millipedes: Women Gardeners fight to keep their vegetable seedlings alive

Ma Jarra explains the situation of the Garden with her grandson tied on her back

This well is the main source of water supply in the Garden 

As consumers of vegetables such as carrots, cucumbers, garden eggs, cabbage, okra, pepper and onions, we complained about the price without knowing that behind the scenes, in the Gardens, Women fight a lot of battles.

Among the battles fought by the women Gardeners of Keur Sidiq Busso is the battle against Millipedes and Cattle to save the lives of their vegetable seedlings that grow into the fresh and juicy vegetables we enjoy in our daily meals.

On the 29th of July, 2024, I travelled to Keur Sidiq Busso, in the North Bank Region of the Gambia, plying the Banjul-Barra Ferry Crossing route for 45 minutes, and joining a vehicle for a 30-minute drive From Barra to Keur selleh, where I took a Motorbike for another 15-minute drive to Keur Sidiq Busso, a Hamlet inhabited by a mixture of tribes including Fulas, Bambara, Manjago and Wollof.

The Women’s Garden is located on the outskirts of the Hamlet, requiring a 40-minutes walk through remote farmlands to reach.

The women used logs and barbed wire to fence the Garden to prevent cattle from entering and destroying their vegetables.

However, that does not stop cattle from knocking down the locally made fence and grazing through the Garden at night to eat vegetables grown by the poor women.

The cattle are not the only foes to the women; the Garden suffers from millipede infestation. The millipedes destroy the seedlings and feed on the vegetables.

Showing me around the Garden, Ma Jarra, a widow in charge of more than ten people in her household and the leader of the women Gardeners, said they don’t have a borehole in the Garden. She said they have only one main well in the Garden, which is concreted.

She said that’s the only well that is still standing and functional because it was concreted. She said the rest of the wells in the Garden were locally dug, and they are either dried or fall due to excessive sand in them. She said during the dry season, the garden faces a water crisis.

She took us to beds of newly germinated vegetable seedlings covered with dead millipedes, explaining that when they planted the seedlings, they bought pesticides and sprayed them over the soil to kill the millipedes and stop them from destroying the Seedlings.

“I bought a pesticide after planting these vegetable seedlings to prevent the millipedes from destroying them. If I leave it like that, the seedling will not survive because the millipedes consume the roots,” she said.

In the dry season, she said the women often team up to purchase seedlings and plant them. She said they stay in the Garden till late at night, not minding how remote and lonely the location of the Garden is, just to prevent cattle from destroying the vegetables.

She said as soon as they leave, the cattle owners will let their cattle loose to graze through the Garden and destroy their vegetables.

She added that those who are not lucky will wake up to the havoc left behind by the cattle. She said that as women, even when they witness it, there is nothing they can do because the cattle owners are scary and aggressive.

“What we do is to gather logs and make a local fence around the Garden, which cannot stop heavily built cattle from knocking it down and accessing the Garden,” she said.

She said during the rains, they convert some parts of the Garden into rice fields.

Ma Jarra emphasizes their hard work, noting that most of them are heads of households with many mouths to feed, shelter, clothes and care for their families.

She said the income they generate from the sale of the vegetables they were able to save from the cattle and millipedes, they used it for the survival of their households.

She said they never received help from the Government of the Gambia or any project to help upgrade the Garden for them. She said they would be glad to welcome help to fence the Garden with a borehole, pesticides, fertilizers and seedlings.

She made a heartfelt appeal to anyone who read their story to come to their aid, so they can establish a sustainable Garden with abundant water, protection against cattle and millipedes, and sufficient produce to sell and support their Families. 

Author: Halimatou Ceesay