Nwanchukwu Success never chose farming; it was the pulse of survival she inherited at birth. Growing up in Imo State, she watched her parents rise with the dawn, coaxing cassava and vegetables from the tired earth.
"Like my brothers and I didn't really like farming," she confessed, her voice quivering as if each word carried the weight of years under the scorching sun. "But they continued because they had no choice; it was the family business. And me… I felt like I had no future there, no path but to watch, to endure, while my hands and body bore the silent marks of a life I hadn't chosen." She traced the faint scars etched into her palms, each one a story of struggle, pain, and survival.
Endless hours of weeding under the scorching sun left her back aching and her resolve thin. But as climate change began to warp rainfall patterns, parch the soil, and turn once-fertile lands barren, the stakes of her work became impossible to ignore. "It stopped being just work; it became survival," she added.
"Hours spent under the blazing sun, my hands raw, my back screaming, my waist locked in pain, I felt crushed, suffocated by it. Every weed I pulled reminded me that this life was not mine. But now, with unpredictable rains and scorching droughts destroying what little we could grow, I realised I had no choice. Farming wasn't just a job; it was the only way to survive," she told Punch Magazine's correspondent.
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