Gizo, Solomon Islands – Marian Biu lives by the values that she is not limited by her circumstances. At the age of 60 and a widow, Marian has health issues and lives with a disability. She is raising her five-year-old granddaughter, little Marian Lusey, in her wooden home in Gizo located in the Western Province of Solomon Islands.

She is known by her friends and families as a strong and hard-working woman. Inspired by her perseverance, Founder and Coordinator of the Gizo Women in Business Development Incorporation (GWIBDI), Esther Suti, signed her up for organic farming training under the Enhancing Food Production through Agroforestry Project. 

“I was visiting her brother to join the training when I met her. I thought she wouldn’t be able to do any work because of her disability but she told me she doesn’t need anything but just a knife and a hoe. Through the project, she learned the trade of organic farming and has worked on her garden every day since. She was given a gardening hoe and a knife to start her garden and she has proven that she is not limited by her disability,” she said.  

Assumptions that programmes make gendered roles in agriculture and about what people living with disabilities need can often lead to the exclusion of women or people living with disabilities before they have had a chance to voice their needs. It is critical that programme design happens in partnership with diverse groups, including those living with disabilities, to address this. Marian, who previously had only lemons in her garden, now has much more variety of organic produce that she sells and earns a living; she even has more than she needs after her sales, which she shares with extended members of her family who are without food. 

Marian Biu said, “I only sell lemons from my garden, but I had no tools to work the garden. Now with the hoe and knife, I clean up, I plant, I harvest, and I sell. In my gardens, I now have potato, cassava, lemons, pumpkin, cabbage, banana, pawpaw, guava. This training is very good. It is helping me and my health. I have not only benefitted, but I have also enjoyed the tools that have been provided.” 

Marian, who is also diabetic, added that with organic farming she has access to healthier food from her garden. The vegetables she has grown have been beneficial for her condition and her granddaughter’s health. With vegetable seeds she’s received, she has also learned to build and care for her nursery. 

“I’m happy because Esther follows up and checks on me and how I’m doing. I don’t sit down and wait for someone to provide for me –with the help given to me I can do it, cutting the grass and planting with what I learned from the training,” said Marian.