The sine-hoe

In 2009 and 2010, 41 farmers benefited from farm implements with support from AAITG Kudang Office through Niamina Dankunku Kawral Kafoo. Isatou Ceesay, a house wife of 50 years in Keur Line was one of the beneficiaries. She was given a weeding machine (sine-hoe) on loan by Kawral Kafoo, an apex organization working in partnership with ActionAid. She narrates her story:

“My husband and I are poor farmers who have had no farm implements. We used manual farm tools to work in the fields. Sometimes we hired the use of farm implements to plant and weed our crop fields. In those years, we cultivated only one crop in a small piece of land. We apparently had very low yields of 2-4 bags (150 – 300 kg) of food grain that was enough to feed the family in only three months on average. When our food produce finished my husband and 1 sought support from relatives, or took credit from businessmen to pay during the trade season at high interest rates. We sometimes resort to selling small ruminants to buy food for the family.

In the lean period, my family went without food ration for some days and we depended on our neighbours who gave us left-overs of their food.

"In 2010 I received a sine hoe on loan from the Kawral kafoo Apex to pay in five years with very little interest. Although I took this loan, I didn’t own a donkey or a horse but I was fortunate to merge this machine with a neighbour who had a donkey but no sine hoe. We worked jointly and put a larger area under cultivation for both coos and groundnuts. I had a higher yield of 600kg of coos which has been quite enough to feed the family for the whole year. I also had five donkey-loads of groundnuts (600kg). I sold part of the groundnuts and used the proceeds to support my children in school. I also bought basic essentials for the family from this amount.

The sine-hoe is an invaluable asset that has enabled me to cultivate groundnuts alongside the basic food crop, coos. I was able to weed the fields in time that influenced my chance of getting higher yields. I had not cultivated groundnuts for many years due to the lack of farm implements. I thank Kawral Kafoo and ActionAid for this opportunity”.