WOMEN WHO DIG

Farming, Feminism, and the Fight to Feed the World

“On the land they shouldered nearly every aspect of production: tilling the earth by hand, preparing the soil, planting, weeding, and harvesting. Society knew them as the abahingi mukazi – ‘women who dig.’”

Weaving together the narratives of female farmers from across three continents, Women Who Dig offers a critical look at how women are responding to and, increasingly, rising up against, the injustices of the global food system.

The idea to write Women Who Dig was born in 2013 in southwestern Uganda, where Trina was working with a local NGO on food security related projects. From 2013 to 2015, Trina traveled to seven other countries on three continents to interview women farmers and farming organizations, asking the question: "what does it mean to be a woman who feeds her community?"

Uganda, 2013 - Bakiga women in southwestern Uganda preparing the soil to plant sweet potatoes, a traditional food crop. Women form small groups to share labour and resources to collectively work the land and support one another. (Photo: Trina Moyles)

Canada, 2014 - Lilli Klamke raises Canadian heritage cattle in the Peace Country of northwestern Alberta, Canada. She is amongst a growing demographic of women, many who didn’t grow up on farms, who are opting to get into agriculture. (Photo: Trina Moyles)

Nicaragua, 2014 - A women’s farming group harvest veggies from their demonstration garden in Rio San Juan, southern Nicaragua, where women are concerned how the palm oil industry is impacting both the health of the community and local waterways. (Photo: KJ Dakin)

Guatemala, 2014 - Aurelia, president of a local Mayan-Mam farming group in Comitancillo, northern Guatemala, is growing non-traditional crops, such as tomatoes, to diversify traditional diets for food security and community health. (Photo: KJ Dakin)

Cuba, 2015 - Nilda Sanchez, a mathematics professor from Santiago de Cuba, is also an urban farmer. In her city plot, she grows over 30 varieties of fruits and vegetables where she teaches her neighbours how to grow and preserve foods. (Photo: Trina Moyles)

Democratic Republic of Congo: Refugee Camp, 2015 - Diana, a social worker from South Kivu, was displaced from the ongoing conflict in Congo, and now lives in the Nakivale Refugee Camp in southern Uganda. Diana has transformed her family’s backyard into a kitchen garden, growing cabbage from vertically raised beds using old potato sacks and keeping small livestock. (Photo: Trina Moyles)

India, 2015 - A woman who describes herself as a “Seed Sister” at the Navdanya demonstration farm in northern India, run by Dr. Vandana Shiva, sorts through a heritage variety of wheat. Women farmers around the world play an important role in saving and preserving seed diversity. (Photo: Trina Moyles)

USA, 2015 - A female farmworker, originally from Mexico, stands in a vineyard in Sonoma Valley, California. Women who are migrant farmworkers, many undocumented, play a vital role in California’s agricultural system. Together they’re forming worker’s organizations to advocate for their rights. (Photo: KJ Dakin)

Beautifully written with spectacular photos, it examines gender roles, access to land, domestic violence, maternal health, political and economic marginalization, and a rapidly changing climate. It also shows the power of collective action.

"A haunting, powerful and important journey, one that crosses the borders of class, race and nation, and one that belongs in the canon of food studies. I’ll be thinking about the testimonies in this book for a very long time to come."

̶ Raj Patel, author of Stuffed and Starved: The Hidden Battle for the World Food System

Finalist for the High Plains Literary Awards in the Best New Book category

Finalist for the Saskatchewan Book Awards in the Best Book category

“Moyles sees signs of a revolution everywhere: in the fight for Ugandan women to be able to own their own land; in Guatemala, where women fought to stay on the ancestral land in the face of development by Vancouver-based mining companies; and in Canada, where young women are taking up farming, against all odds, in a culture of increasingly large corporate farms.”

– Sharon J. Riley, The Tyee

With women from Guatemala, Nicaragua, the United States, Canada, Uganda, the Democratic Republic of Congo, India, and Cuba included, it explores the ways women are responding to, as both individuals and in groups, the barriers they face in providing the world a healthy diet.

WOMEN WHO DIG DOCUMENTARY FILM

Women Who Dig is a documentary film by Anna Kuelken, adapted from the book Women Who Dig: Farming, Feminism, and the Fight to Feed the World by Trina Moyles.

Women Who Dig showcases Canadian women on a journey to combat food insecurity and the industrial farm system by utilizing traditional farming techniques rooted in ancestral history. The small family farm is often perceived to be an occupation of the past that is being overtaken by large-scale industrial farming practices. Big Ag wreaks havoc on our global climate, all the while creating a GMO monoculture that contributes to an enormous loss of our planet’s biodiversity. This documentary, filmed over the course of three years in cinema verite, offers an intimate portrait of the lesser-told story of women farmers and land stewards pushing back against industrial practices. Across Western Canada in rural and urban centres, women are sowing the seeds for a better tomorrow. These are their stories of hope, grief, joy, and resilience.

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An excerpt:

“Women,” said Lilian with a knowing smile, “women are a current in a great, wide river. At the surface the water appears to move slowly. But underneath, the strength of the river is so great it can wear down any obstacle it encounters. Women can move mountains.”
I had witnessed it in eight different countries around the world: women resisting the forces that prevented them from growing food and succeeding in the face of patriarchy, market disparities, gender-based violence, and climate change. Today and tomorrow women will change food systems. They will feed the world.”