Meet Mohamed Abdirahman Abdalla, a 83-year-old, a farmer living in Bardera, Jubba-land Somalia, a father of 3 children and had originally migrated from Yemen. Mohamed had witnessed several seasons of crop production failure where he had cultivated food from his farm, fallowing the desert locust infestation storms which had totally depleted his farm and left for nothing to cultivate, this had forced Mohamed and his family to leave from the farms and come to Bardera town having nothing to eat. ‘’The season was good and I planted maize, cowpea and some vegetable at my farm in Shimbirole, expecting to have a good harvest, a huge desert locust from North of Somalia stormed at my farm and damaged all farm product within hours’’ he explains. On September,2020, SADO/NCA registered Mohamed Abdirahman as beneficiary of SNLRP Phase I project and he received $360 for six months mobile money transfer (September,2020-February,2021) as Mohamed and his family survived from the impact of the desert locust infestation.
“Not only are we benefitting from the cash we received from SADO/NCA as buying food and none- food items, but we are using the same money to expand my farm land and buy farm tools as well,” says Mohamed. With that land expanded to the farm, he is now willing to produce more food and increase his farming activities as well, and this will enable him pay for his children’s school fees. Mohamed explained to SADO team that with the beginning of Gu’ rains, the community in Shimbirole will have a good farming season and increase their food production status as well,