Farmers helping farmers in need this Christmas

Amanuel and Felekech
Amanuel and Felekech

International development charity Send a Cow has launched an exciting fundraising campaign Planting Hope which allows people in the UK to support poor farmers and their families across Africa.

It’s the largest fundraising campaign the charity, set up by West Country dairy farmers almost 30 years ago, has ever launched and all donations made until 31 December will be matched £1 for £1 by the UK government. With a range of Christmas gifts on offer and all donations being doubled, it’s the perfect way for farmers to help farmers this Christmas.

Planting Hope was inspired by a meeting with 30-year-old Ammanuel who is struggling to feed his family in the Wolayita region of Ethiopia. But since launching the campaign, there is even more urgency for the people of Ethiopia with the drought – the worst in a decade - expected to affect millions of people over the next few years.

Ammanuel told Send a Cow about the utter hopelessness he feels and the daily struggle he has to feed his family: “I want to change my life. But I have no hope from this land. The landscape is bad, the soil is bad, and there is no water except during the rainy season. If I plant vegetables during the rainy season, they will be decayed. If I plant them during the dry season, they will die because of lack of water. I am thinking of going and working as daily labourer in Addis Ababa or Zeway town.”

Yet just a few yards up the road Ammanuel’s neighbour Abebe uses similar resources to run a successful family farm. Thanks to Send a Cow training, he’s growing vegetables and saving money – enough to send his daughter to school: “Before I joined Send a Cow, I was a daily labourer working for better off farmers in the community. I used to eat one meal a day. The types of foods were only bread, sweet potato, Enset [false banana], and local cabbage.

"Now I have a different story. I have planted vegetables such as garlic, carrot, beetroot, cabbage, and others, which I had never grown before … my family eats three times a day… I started getting income from sales of vegetables from the surplus and started saving against future shocks like drought."

In March the two men came together to discuss their circumstances, and Abebe encouraged Ammanuel to consider training with Send a Cow. His eyes were opened to the possibility of change.

Send a Cow Chief Executive, Simon Barnes explains: “Send a Cow has helped well over one million of Africa’s poorest people out of poverty since 1988 and we know from experience that Ammanuel’s lack of hope is sadly all too common among those eking out an existence in remote, rural homesteads.

“We have been very successful at helping people grow their way out of poverty through training and livestock but now we want to do more – developing our programmes around the young, communities and enterprise so we are working with one million people by the year 2020. Planting Hope is a significant step towards meeting this ambition and we are thrilled the UK government has recognised the power of this project.”