Right message, wrong audience!

J. Roughan

19 February 2010

Honiara  

 

Back in 1962 I was running a small school in Rohinari in West Are'are. On the side, as it were,  I was also trying my hand at raising pigs. My first attempts at caring for a half dozen pigs went well.  In fact, my pigs were doing a lot better than many village ones because of one thing--I was raising pigs on cement and not allowing them to roam all about to be infected with kidney worm which was basically killing local pigs. Villagers' pigs looked more like 4x2's while mine were getting fatter by the day.

 

One day, I invited twenty or so local villagers, 19 men and a single woman. After showing them my pigs, how fat and sleek they were, I let the villagers in on my little secret: raise your pigs on cement, don't let them wallow in mud and by doing so reduce kidney worm infections to almost zero. Without doubt, my small audience got the message and were happy to have the new information.

 

Feeling a bit proud of myself about the great turn out of villagers at my pig-raising meeting, I mentioned to Br. John who was living at the same mission station. He was a man from Iowa in the States and had been at Rohinari for many years. I told him about the great meeting I had with local Big Men and showed them how to raise pigs properly. Br. John asked me one question: "How many women attended the meeting?" When I replied that only a single woman had shown up for the meeting, he just wagged his head and said: "In Are'are, it's the women who feed, water and care for pigs! If only one woman attended  your meeting, then, although you sent out the right message, the wrong audience was listening. You should have had 19 women at the meeting and perhaps a single man!"

 

This early experience in raising livestock at the village level came flooding back to me when I read about government's launch of a new National Agricultural and Livestock Sector Policy paper last week. The Star's newspaper's picture and story which covered the launching of the document said it all: 4 smiling men--the Agriculture Minister, PS of Agriculture, and two other officials but not a single woman in sight! History was repeating itself: Right Message! Wrong Audience!

 

Almost everything printed in this the newest agriculture document is spot on: poverty alleviation thorough food security, sustainable management of natural resources, investment in agri research, etc. etc. Yet, when villagers themselves, more than 13,000 of them, highly recommended that there be a major increase in markets for women's garden produce and cheap, reliable transport to these markets, then Solomon Islands decision makers turn out to be deaf, dumb and blind. It was one of Bart Ulufa'alu's first decisions as PM, asking SIDT to conduct a national survey on investment monies. More than 13,000 citizens, as a first order of priority, called for more markets and transport to get garden goods to market.

 

Yet, to this day, now 14 years after the survey, food markets remain basically the same in number and rural transport has more or less stayed stagnant as well. Of course food security must be a top priority for any future government. But simply publishing new documents without really listening to villagers pleas for more markets, better transport, clear pricing arrangements for food products, wholesale purchase of mangoes, bananas, citrus fruit, watermelon, etc. when in abundance leaves the woman gardener at the mercy of market forces.

 

Our most vulnerable food producer, the woman gardener, needs more than mere words to convince her that surplus food production must have a vibrant and growing market ready and willing to take her surplus food at a reasonable price. Our weakest link, then, in the food security arena is not that government policy is weak and unclear but that women who actually produce the surplus product are not at all convinced that extra garden efforts will be rewarded with modest amounts of income.

 

So rather than take the chance that her surplus food could be wasted or attract a miserably small price, the woman gardener tailors her labour efforts to what she can produce for immediate family needs. There's no doubt that village women could produce much more food if given proper incentives. How many marriage and other feasts when prepared for by the whole village, have more than enough food for all participants!     

 

Many of the nation's newest political parties and even the government of the day are riding hard and shouting from the roof tops that the rural areas will be given special place if and when they get into power. Yet, so many of these promises remain merely promises because it's the men who make them, not the women who have to activate them. May I make a suggestion? Any official agricultural promise must have more women on the organizing body making the promise than men! Let's stop repeating our past mistakes: Right message but informing the wrong audience!