In Ganepo Village, organic women farmers are leading the village’s efforts in sustainable farming.

A short 10 minutes’ boat ride through the Mentaya River from the town of Sampit is Ganepo Village, a small village within East Kotawaringin Regency, well- known as Sampit’s main supplier of banana leaves. Over the years, Villagers of Ganepo have supported themselves through selling produce, such as local fruits, and vegetables, by growing them within the limited land space they own within their homes. Though in order to minimize production costs, most villagers have resorted to cheap chemical fertilizers and clearing land by burning, farming in ways that greatly disadvantage the environment.

But around 3 months ago, a group of 20 women farmers, named Kelompok Tani Perempuan, from Ganepo Village have started assimilating their ways of farming to that of farmers from Katingan Mentaya Project’s sustainable agricultural school, Sekolah Tani Tanpa Kimia Tanpa Bakar (Sekolah Tani TKTB). While KMP facilitates their meeting, both sides have collaborated through exchanging past farming experiences and knowledge, and Ganepo Village’s Kelompok Tani Perempuan learnt how to clear lands without burning and make organic fertilizers of their own for more sustainable ways of farming.