
This is the ninth post of Farming First’s #FillTheGap campaign to highlight the gender gap facing rural women working in agriculture.
Smallholders in Africa, more than anywhere else in the world, are at the mercy of a changing climate and environmental conditions, which can bring extreme weather and disease.
Only last year this harsh life-lesson was brought home dramatically to Ethel Khundi, 36, when her entire drove of pigs was killed by an outbreak of swine flu that wiped out hundreds of animals in the locality.
“Nearly everyone in the village lost their animals. It was a major setback,” she said.