Maasai women turn drought into income through fodder farming in Tanzania

Monduli, Tanzania – When drought wiped out most of her family’s livestock, 30-year-old Nesirkar Loongidong’i, a Maasai mother of four from Selela village in northern Tanzania, found herself with very few options. The dry season had already killed most of their animals.

Today, she makes a living growing and selling drought-resistant livestock fodder.

“Before I planted fodder, I lost most of our goats. Now, people come from other villages to buy grass, and I can support my children. I don’t fear drought anymore,” Loongidong’i told Al Jazeera.

With the income, she has built a house and bought five goats.

Loongidong’i’s story is part of a much larger and fast-growing shift. Across northern Tanzania, Maasai women, part of a community of about 430,000 people, are turning fodder production from a survival tactic into a climate-adaptation business. The work is coordinated by the Pastoral Women’s Council (PWC) and is spreading across pastoral districts.

The PWC is a women-led membership organisation working across three northeastern districts, covering more than 28,000 square kilometres (10,810 square miles) and serving about 456,000 people, most of them Maasai pastoralists. Founded in 1997, it now counts around 6,500 members in 90 villages, with years of work focused on land rights, economic empowerment, and girls’ education.

For Loongidong’i, it all comes down to growing pasture grass without irrigation. Because demand remains steady, so does her income, and with it, her household’s stability. Today, she lives in a home with a metal roof, and nearby, her goats graze in a fenced area as their numbers slowly grow again.

According to Tanzania’s Ministry of Livestock and Fisheries, at least 306,358 animals, including cattle, goats, sheep, and donkeys, died between September 2021 and January 2022 due to prolonged drought. In Simanjiro district alone, 92,047 livestock were lost, wiping out livelihoods across pastoral communities.