Reclaiming the rice terraces, one season at a time

When the rains shifted, the terraces that had fed our village for generations began to fail. Younger families were leaving for the cities, and the knowledge of how to work the slopes was leaving with them.

Our cooperative started small: a handful of young women trading notes on water timing, cover crops, and seed varieties that could handle the new weather. We paired what our grandmothers taught us with the soil data we were finally able to collect.

We are not waiting to be included in the plan. We are the plan.

Two seasons on, the terraces are producing again, and the cooperative has grown to more than forty members. What changed was not one big intervention, but many small decisions made by the people who live on the land.

What helped

• Shared record-keeping across farms, so decisions were based on real local data.

• Access to climate-resilient seed varieties suited to the slopes.

• A savings circle that let members invest without taking on unpayable debt.

We are sharing this so that other young women farmers know it is possible, and so that the people who write agrifood policy hear how change actually happens on the ground.