Women’s innovations in rural livelihood systems in arid areas of Tunisia
Noureddine Nasr, Bellachheb Chahbani and Radhia Kamel[1]
In central and southern Tunisia, women are involved in almost all activities in both rainfed and irrigated farming, and are also responsible for specific tasks, such as: collecting firewood; managing the ovens (tabounas); fetching water; harvesting grains, fruits and vegetables; collecting traditional fodder; hoeing; weeding; irrigation; and feeding and watering animals. Some women have managed to increase production and cash income by developing innovations based on their experience in these activities. Here, the outcome of a survey to identify such women innovators is presented.
IDENTIFYING WOMEN INNOVATORS
At the outset of ISWC 2 in central and southern Tunisia, training was given in PRA and PTD in different regions. This was meant to raise awareness about innovation by farmers, both men and women, and to lead to the identification of specific innovators. The trainees were researchers and staff of the Departments of Soil and Water Conservation in the regional branches of the Ministry of Agriculture. All of them were men. In addition, one-day workshops were held at the regional headquarters of the agricultural services in Médenine, Gabès, Gafsa, Sidi Bouzid and Tatouine. Some 160 staff members took part; also these were predominantly men (95 per cent). After these workshops, innovators were indeed identified, but most of them were likewise men.
In the local culture, male researchers and development agents from outside the area are usually not permitted to talk with village women. As the ISWC team at the Institut des Régions Arides (IRA) was, at the time, composed exclusively of men, it was decided to ask some professional women from technical agencies and local institutions, but mainly female teachers and students returning to their villages for the long summer holidays, to identify rural women’s innovations. The ISWC team trained 15 women to document the role of women in farming and processing agricultural produce. Within two months, they managed to identify 31 female innovators. This identification process is continuing through a regional radio programme on Agriculture and Innovation (Chapter 31) and other activities of ISWC-Tunisia and has been facilitated by the recent recruitment of a female sociologist to join the team.
In the initial survey, most women innovators were found in the regions of Gafsa and Sidi Bouzid, where population density is higher and agriculture is more diversified and intensive than in the Médenine and Tataouine regions (Abaab et al 1993, Nasr 1993). Sidi Bouzid has the largest number of irrigated schemes, here cropping (both rainfed and irrigated) is well integrated with livestock keeping (Abaab et al 1993).
CHARACTERISTICS OF WOMEN INNOVATORS
Thirty of the women innovators were married. The women were between 23 and 84 years old, most being in their 30s and 40s. Especially the older women innovators had little formal education, as they came from rural mountainous areas where, until recently, there were few opportunities – especially for girls – to go to school. One of the women had attended secondary school and eight (25 per cent) primary school. The others (72 per cent) were illiterate; these 22 women were over 40 years and lived in relatively remote and deprived areas. However, with the spread of electricity and education in the rural areas during the last 30 years and particularly during the last decade, the women have more contact with a new culture through radio, television and their schoolgoing children.
SPHERES OF INNOVATION
Married women are responsible for taking care of their homesteads and families and are in charge of certain agricultural activities. Rabbits and poultry are their major sources of cash income (Chahbani & Nasr 1999). The survey revealed that the women innovate most actively in those spheres that concern them directly. The main economic activity of all but one of the women innovators was rainfed and/or irrigated crop production and raising sheep and goats. Most of them also practised some handicrafts. The sphere in which the largest number of women was found to be innovating was in livestock keeping (11 women). Other innovations were in cropping (seven women), handicrafts (six), use of medicinal plants (three), efficient use of energy for charcoal making and improved stoves (two) and food processing, specifically the processing of milk from sheep and goats (two women).
Handicrafts included making carpets and other products out of wool and weaving mats and other household items out of alfa grass (Stipa tenacissima). Women innovators in this sphere were found in all age groups and in all regions. Specific innovations were producing woollen mats and extracting natural dyes from leaves, roots and bark.
The innovations related to crops included fig pollination techniques and using plastic bottles for water-efficient irrigation of melons. For example, Rgaya Zammouri in Zammour village (Médenine), who is over 70 years old, uses 1.5 litre plastic bottles to irrigate watermelons and melons. She buries each bottle in the soil with the cork downwards, in which she made up to three tiny holes with a needle, so that water is released directly beside the plant. She fills the bottles with water from a cistern fed by runoff rainwater. The water infiltrates slowly near the plant roots and thus escapes the high evaporation in this region. She started this innovation in the 1997–98 growing season. She used to carry the water from the cistern to the field in a bucket, but now the ISWC programme has supplied her with a water tap and a rubber hose to facilitate her work. Her innovation is simple, efficient and low in cost and therefore has a potential to spread much more widely.
Eleven women (35 per cent of those identified) have innovated in livestock keeping, specifically with sheep and goat feeding, and with keeping poultry, bees and rabbits. For example, Mbirika Chokri, a 70-year-old woman living in Sidi Aich (Gafsa), practises rainfed farming and specializes in poultry. Her innovation consists of incubating chicken eggs in dry cattle dung. She puts the eggs with some straw in plastic bags to preserve some humidity. Each bag contains 16–20 eggs. She puts the bags in small holes dug in the manure, covers them with a piece of cardboard to protect them against damage and covers the cardboard with a thin layer of manure. Each day, she opens the bags to check the temperature of the eggs and to turn and aerate them. From Day 20, the eggs start to hatch. She puts the chicks into a box to protect them from the cold and feeds them couscous, vegetables and bread.
Mbirika started this innovation in 1995 when one of her chickens, whose eggs were about to hatch, suddenly died. She decided to put the eggs into a pile of dried cattle dung. After some days, the eggs hatched, to her delight. She decided to use manure again in the same way to hatch eggs. Mbirika now masters this technique very well and produces numerous chicks. She did not share her experience with her neighbours, but she accepted the request of ISWC-Tunisia to present her innovation in the Agriculture and Innovation programme of the Gafsa regional radio and later also on television.
POTENTIAL FOR SPREAD OF WOMEN’S INNOVATIONS
The livelihood systems in central and southern Tunisia have changed radically in recent decades. New production systems have replaced the traditional pastoralism, which had been the dominant source of livelihood in this area for centuries (Nasr 1993, Abaab et al 1993). There are also increasingly closer links between the countryside and urban markets, and rural women need more cash to satisfy new needs. Women innovate not only to increase their income, but also to decrease their workload. For instance, economizing on the use of water for irrigation reduces the time and energy spent on fetching water.
Several women stated that their innovations grew out of their own ideas and creativity, or were a chance discovery. The oldest innovations by women – in handicrafts and medicines – are rooted in local knowledge but adapted (in design, materials or use) to the new socio-economic context. Generally, women’s innovations – such as the above-mentioned ones involving bottles for localized irrigation or incubating eggs in manure – are simple, practical and low-cost and therefore have a good potential for spreading.
More and more Tunisian researchers and development agents, as well as policy-makers at regional and national level, are coming to recognize the innovative capacities of rural women. In 1999 and 2000, researchers and several women innovators began collaborating on experiments to develop their innovations further. The challenge is to improve and expand this approach within Tunisia and beyond.
NOTE
This is an expanded version of an article by Nasr et al (2000) that appeared in the ILEIA Newsletter focused on Grassroots Innovation and the French version Promouvoir l’Innovation Paysanne.
REFERENCES
Abaab A, Nasr N, Ben Salah M and Sghaier M. 1993. Caractérisation des milieux et des systèmes des zones arides et désertiques tunisiennes.CIHEAM-IAM, Montpellier / IRA, Médenine
Chahbani B and Nasr N. 1999. Le développement participatif de technologies basé sur les innovations des hommes et des femmes en zones arides de la Tunisie.IRA, Médenine / CDCS, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
Nasr N. 1993. Les systèmes agraires et les organisations spatiales en milieu aride: cas d’El-Ferch et du Dahar de Chénini-Guermessa(Gouvernerat de Tataouine).Doctoral thesis, PaulValéryUniversity, Montpellier III
Nasr N, Chahbani B and Ben Ayed A. 2000. Innovation by Tunisian women in dryland farming. ILEIA Newsletter 16 (2): 20 (Les innovations des femmes en Tunisia, Bulletin d’ILEIA 16 (2): 16)
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Women’s innovations in arid Tunisia
[1] This text appears as Chapter 12 (pp 132–136) in the book Farmer Innovation in Africa: A Source of Inspiration for Agricultural Development, edited by Chris Reij and Ann Waters-Bayer, published by Earthscan, London, 2001, when Noureddine Nasr was agronomist and geographer with IRA Gabès and PTD trainer in ISWC-Tunisia, Bellachheb Chahbani was SWC specialist with IRA Médenine and coordinator of ISWC-Tunisia; and Radhia Kamel was sociologist with IRA Gabès.