By Kate Morioka, Research Project Manager
Whilst women in Aisiko and Siarana don’t know what climate change is or what causes it, they are certainly aware that the climate is changing. For most women in Solomon Islands who are the primary producers of food, climate change is having an impact on food security.
Women in both Aisiko and Siarana, the two study communities involved in ActionAid’s research, explained how dry and wet seasons are getting longer and more intense, which consequently impact on their ability to plant and harvest food.
Prolonged periods of rain and sun are especially impacting on pana [a local variety of yam] and yam, which are staples for people living in the Central Province of Solomon Islands.
“Before, pana and yam used to grow well in our gardens but not now. They are dying because of too much rain and too much sun,” a young woman from Siarana explained. Her experiences were also confirmed by other women in the community. They believe that their crop yields from their food gardens have been decreasing over the last decade because of the extreme weather changes.
Similar concerns are shared by women of Aisko in the highlands of Central Malaita. The women in this community explained that when it rains, it rains very hard and as soon as the rain stops, the sun comes out with full force. The women told us that “this extreme change in weather affects sweet potato and taro, which are our staple foods.”
The extreme weather changes are also thought to be causing other problems to food crops, such as the introduction of new diseases and insects. “All our cabbages are being eaten by caterpillars and beetles, where as before we didn’t have this problem,” stated women in the village of Aisiko.
Recongnising the important role that women play in producing food and the potential impact of climate change on food production, both men and women in the two study villages remarked that if women are not able to get enough harvest from the gardens, then their families will go hungry.
People from the two study communities agreed that women are most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change because they are the ones who are responsible for producing food. If there aren’t sufficient crop yields, there are less produce for women to sell at the market and less for the family to eat, affecting both people’s livelihoods and food security.
