The Transformation of the Sadore Village Introduction Many of us involved in rural development in Africa are amazed at how strong

the force of tradition is in thwarting our attempts to move farmers out of poverty. Tradition has a powerful magnetic effect (like a black hole) on all our efforts. We drill wells and build market gardens, we provide farmers with high quality seeds, and we introduce the use of fertilizers, only to find a few years later that all was in vain. The motor pump broke down and no one cared repairing it. The well collapsed. The good varieties were not kept and farmers stopped using fertilizers. The village returned to its comfortable subsistence living and poverty. Some experts like the founders of the Millennium Villages Project claim that for development to be sustainable we must invest heavily in an integrated set of activities incorporating education, health, agricultural development etc. This might work in the long run, but it will be difficult for most of us to find the resources needed to implement such an approach. For these reasons I was extremely pleased and surprised when I was told by many that the Village of Sadore, situated outside the gates of ICRISAT (International Crops Research Institute for the Semi Arid Tropics) research station in Niger, has undergone a remarkable economic and social transformation over the last few years. Based on my long experience with development in Niger I found it hard to believe. On one of my recent visits to Niger I took the trouble of visiting this village, to which I am emotionally attached, on a "fact finding" mission. I sat with the two leading women of the village; Ramatou the President of the women association and Oumou the Secretary of the association, and with the local primary school director. They told me an amazing story.
Left-Ramatou the President; right-Oumou the Secretary of Sadore Women Association. How happy they are! And look at their expensive clothing!

But before I share their story with you I need to relate how it all came about. The seeds of transformation of the Sadore village were sown by Mrs. Betty Dar, wife of Dr. William Dar, the Director General of ICRISAT. Betty visited the ICRISAT center of Niger in 2003 together with her husband. At this occasion she wanted to "do something" to help the women of the Sadore village. We installed a small 500m2 drip irrigated market garden for the local women association. This garden was well received and brought significant income to the women who until that time had no other sources of income. Sadore was a typical Nigerien village with women threshing millet grain daily to prepare the family meal, collecting firewood for cooking and heating, fetching water from the village well and living in their traditional small mud houses. Women were fully dependent on their husbands for the supply of food and for cash to purchase essential goods for survival. In drought years the village went hungry because the millet crop failed. It was then that the Sadore village became my experimental ground. The village chief donated one hectare (about 2.2 acres) of land for the joint activities of the school children and their mothers. We fenced the plot, constructed a fruit tree

Grafted mangoes in Sadore village nursery

nursery for the women and for the school children, a vegetable garden for the school children, and initiated an education program for school children that we called "Farmers of the Future". Later, the village chief provided two hectares of degraded land and we started a project called "Bio-reclamation of Degraded Lands" (BDL) where women planted traditional vegetables in planting pits. At the beginning of 2011 I left ICRISAT and for almost three years I had no contact with the women of Sadore. When I returned in August 2013 this is what Ramatou and Oumou told me.

The Outcomes Practically every house in the village of Sadore has a fruit tree nursery in the backyard. Nursery is being practiced by both women and men. The original womens nursery has doubled in size to about 2,000m2. The most productive women produce more than 1,000 seedlings per year of mango, Pomme du Sahel (the domesticated Ziziphus mauritiana), various citrus species and moringa (our outstanding PKM 1 variety). Each woman generates a gross income of about 1.0 million FCFA ($2,000) per year, five times the national average! During my visit I estimated that there are currently 300,000 fruit trees plants under production in the communal and backyard nurseries at a value of approximately $0.5 million.
Private nurseries by every home at Sadore village

The women have sent their children (our previous Farmers of the Future) to high school in the neighboring town of Say (Sadore has no high school) and are paying for their lodgings and education. Since 2006 some 200 children have gone to the secondary school of Say.
Women selling plants in the regional market; about 300,000 plants are sold each year

Before 2006 the Sadore women did not have the resources to send their children to secondary school. Many of these young people are now attending the University of Niamey and various colleges. Those children who did not go to high school opened their own nurseries in their backyards. What is most outstanding is the new social status of women in the village. With the money earned from the nursery, the women have built about 50 new houses to replace their traditional houses. They have purchased land in the vicinity of the village (something almost unheard of in Niger) and given the fields to their relatives to cultivate. In the drought of 2011 their families did not suffer hunger when the millet fields planted by their husbands failed. The women no longer grind millet for their daily cooking. They are too busy in their nurseries. They buy their food supplies in the village store and in the market. They have fully equipped their houses with furniture and modern kitchen equipment. Now that electricity has reached Sadore they are purchasing refrigerators and other electrical appliances. They purchased mobile phones for themselves and for their husbands. The husband no longer takes additional wives. He is quite content with one and has joined her by constructing private nurseries by their houses. The lesson learned from the Sadore village transformation is simple and straightforward: If you want women to achieve social equality-give them a good source of income. And the amazing fact is that women did it on their own. The construction of the fruit tree nursery and the education of the school children in entrepreneurship within the "Farmers of the Future" program were the triggers for the transformation. All the rest they did by themselves. The success of the Sadore village is now being up-scaled by two small but very active NGOs called Pencils for Kids and Eliminate Poverty Now. They joined hands with a local NGO (Libo) at the Libore region near Niamey and with the Ministry of Education of Niger to initiate a Pilot Study of the Farmers of the Future program. Currently in three villages in Libore, they are planning to upscale the program throughout the country starting in 2015 after the pilot stage is over. What were the reasons for the success of the Sadore village? First, the women had a good source of income in the fruit tree nursery which used very little land, since women had no right to their own land. Second, they had good access to technical support over a period of many years to allow them to digest the technology and gain confidence in their ability to produce and sell. And last but not least they had strong and wise leadership in the shape of Ramatou and Oumou.
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The women of Sadore have passed the threshold of poverty. They have reached a noreturn stage. They escaped the black hole. Even if the profitability of fruit tree plants decreases in the future, they will find new sources of income to allow them to keep and improve their new standard of living.