In Kayonza District, agriculture is the backbone of most households. Families depend on farming not only for food but also for income, school fees, and health care. For years, farmers have received support in improved seeds, fertilizers, irrigation, and modern farming techniques. However, despite these efforts, some households continued to record poor harvests and slow progress.
Through the Gender Action Learning System (GALS), communities in Kayonza have now discovered a silent but powerful challenge that was holding agriculture back: family conflicts.
Through GALS training, communities in Kayonza have uncovered family conflicts as a major hidden barrier to agricultural development. Farmers say disagreements at household level were affecting how they planted, harvested, stored, and sold their produce, leaving families poor despite hard work in the fields 🌾.
Understanding the Hidden Problem
Unlike traditional agricultural training, GALS is a participatory behaviour-change and development approach. It helps families analyze their lives, relationships, and decision-making using simple drawings and discussions. Through this process, farmers began to understand that unity at home is as important as good seeds and fertilizers.
Many participants admitted that conflicts between husbands and wives were affecting productivity. Disagreements over land use, income, and harvest management often resulted in mistrust, poor planning, and wasted resources.
🗣️Voices from the Community
Pascal Ntirimeninda, a farmer from Kayonza District, explained how family conflicts and lack of cooperation once destroyed both their farming plans and overall family development before he attended GALS training.
He recalled that farming in his household was marked by mistrust and poor communication, where each partner worked separately and made decisions alone. This situation slowly weakened their progress and created repeated conflicts.
“Before, I could plant crops alone, and after harvesting, I would take everything to the market by myself. The problem was that my wife believed farming was only my responsibility because she was not involved in the work. Since she did not participate, she also did not feel free to ask how much I earned or how I used the money,” Pascal said.
He explained that this lack of teamwork made him feel fully entitled to the harvest, with no sense of shared responsibility or planning for the future.
“Because of that, I felt the harvest belonged to me alone. I sold all the crops and did not even keep seeds for the next season. When planting time came, we had nothing to plant, and conflicts started again,” he added.
According to Pascal, this cycle of poor cooperation and repeated misunderstandings kept the family trapped in poverty, despite working hard in the fields year after year.
After joining Gender Action Learning System (GALS) training, Pascal said his understanding of family roles, cooperation, and development completely changed. Through tools such as the Gender Balance Tree and the sustainable economic vision, he began to see how his own mindset was blocking progress.
“Because we were not united, we could not develop. Each of us was thinking only about ourselves,” Pascal continued.
He noted that GALS helped him understand that agriculture is not an individual effort but a shared journey that requires dialogue, trust, and joint decision-making.
“Through GALS training, I changed my mindset. I understood that farming is a shared responsibility, and so is the harvest. Today, we plan together, we harvest together, and we decide together. GALS helped me realize that I was destroying our own future, and now we are building it together by discussing everything as a family,” he said.
His wife, Odette Nyirahabimana, said the GALS approach helped her look inward and confront how her own behavior was contributing to inequality and slowing down family development.
She explained that before the training, she had never questioned how work was divided in their home. What felt “normal” was actually exhausting her husband and weakening their progress as a family.
“Before GALS, I used to leave almost all household and farming responsibilities to my husband, even when we worked together in the fields, I would stop once we returned home. My husband would continue fetching water, collecting firewood, and cutting forage for livestock while I rested. I thought this was acceptable because, in our culture, many people believe men are naturally stronger and should do more.” Odette said
She admitted that this imbalance created silent frustration and reduced motivation in the household, even though it was not openly discussed.
“I did not realize that by resting while he continued working, I was increasing inequality and hurting our development. He was tired, discouraged, and sometimes angry, but we did not talk about it. We were living together, but not truly working together.” She said
Nyirahabimana said everything changed when they were introduced to the Gender Balance Tree during GALS training. Seeing their household roles drawn on paper was a turning point.
“When we drew our Gender Balance Tree, I was shocked. I saw clearly that the tree was completely unbalanced. My husband was doing most of the work, carrying most responsibilities, and yet we expected development. That moment opened my eyes.”
She explained that the realization pushed them into honest dialogue and joint planning for the first time.
“Through GALS, we sat down as equals and talked openly. I understood that inequality was not only hurting my husband it was harming our children and our future.”
Odette concluded that as a result, they agreed on clear, shared goals and a new way of working together.
“Together, we set three main goals: to expand our land, to pay school fees for our children without stress, and to build a decent house where our family can live with dignity. These goals became our common vision, not his or mine alone.”
Today, she says their home has completely changed.
“GALS illuminated our home, our lives, and our future. We now share work, we share decisions, and we share responsibility. Peace returned to our household, and our farming has improved because we are united.”
Leadership Perspective
Local leaders say family conflicts are strongly linked to poverty and food insecurity.
Catherine Tunga, the Kayonza District Coordinator of the National Women Council, said experience on the ground shows that homes affected by conflicts are often the same ones struggling with poverty, food insecurity, and social problems. According to her, agriculture cannot thrive where families are divided.
“A household with conflicts is where we mostly find poverty. It is where we see children suffering from malnutrition, school dropouts, and even teenage pregnancies,” Catherine explained.
She added that these problems are not accidental, but are often rooted in harmful cultural beliefs and misunderstandings about gender roles within families.
“Very often, conflicts are caused by mindsets linked to culture where a man believes a woman should not question decisions, or where a woman misunderstands equality and reacts in ways that damage the household. When there is no understanding, dialogue, or cooperation, development cannot happen, whether in agriculture, livestock, or any other activity,” she said.
Catherine stressed that addressing these household-level challenges is essential for sustainable development and praised GALS as a timely and effective solution.
“That is why we truly appreciate the GALS training we are receiving. These lessons are helping to heal families, restore unity in households, and we strongly believe this positive change will continue,” she added.
Family Conflict as an Agricultural Pest
Shakira Gisa, a Community Development, Gender and Youth Specialist at SPIU, and a GALS leader and facilitator under KWIP in Kayonza, compared family conflict to crop pests, saying its impact is even more destructive because it attacks the entire farming system from within.
She explained that while farmers are well trained to identify and fight visible agricultural pests, they are rarely taught to recognize social and household problems that silently destroy productivity.
“MINAGRI and RAB have lists of pests that destroy maize, beans, and other crops. Family conflict and gender inequality should also be on that list. They destroy not only crops but also farmers, land, and families.”
According to Shakira, what makes family conflict especially dangerous is that it cannot be solved with chemicals or quick technical fixes.
“When pests attack maize, you spray and save it. But family conflict destroys the whole value chain. A family may plan together, but after harvest one person sells everything. The next season fails, and sometimes the family even ends up selling land.”
Shakira emphasized that the Gender Action Learning System (GALS) was designed to address exactly this kind of hidden challenge by transforming how families think, work, and make decisions together.
“Through GALS, we teach men and women equality and complementarity, not competition, We help families learn to plan together, plant together, harvest together, and decide together. That is how agriculture truly grows.” She said
Growing Impact
GALS was introduced in Kayonza through the second phase of the Kayonza Irrigation and Integrated Watershed Management Project (KIIWP2), is a project jointly implemented by the Government of Rwanda in partnership with the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), through the Ministry of Agriculture and Animal Resources (MINAGRI), and implemented under the Rwanda Agriculture and Animal Resources Development Board (RAB). GALS training in Kayonza started with 1,200 participants and has now reached more than 20,000 people. The project targets 40,000 beneficiaries by 2028.
