Shal­iza?Has­sanali

When There­sa Akaloo took the plunge to leave her pub­lic ser­vice job to labour in the rice fields of the Nar­i­va Swamp, she was dri­ven by de­ter­mi­na­tion to be­come her own boss, help feed the na­tion and de­fend the rights of farm­ers.

To­day, she is the man­ag­er of her own 150-acre rice farm in Ca­roni and is reap­ing the re­wards of her sac­ri­fices, hav­ing suc­cess­ful­ly ed­u­cat­ed her three chil­dren through her ex­ploits in cul­ti­vat­ing the starchy sta­ple.

At 53, Akaloo, a grand­moth­er of two, is known as the feisty rice la­dy in her Munroe Road, Cunu­pia com­mu­ni­ty.

In a field dom­i­nat­ed by men, Akaloo said she had to rule with an iron fist to gain re­spect and make a name for her­self as a farmer, a pro­fes­sion many still frown up­on and take for grant­ed.

Akaloo spoke to the Sun­day Guardian about her tri­als and tribu­la­tions as a moth­er, wife, farmer, ad­vis­er and man­ag­er, as the world cel­e­brates to­day In­ter­na­tion­al Women's Day un­der the theme Make It Hap­pen.

Hav­ing worn many hats in the last two decades, Akaloo is seen by her chil­dren, hus­band and peers as a woman of true grit.

Days af­ter cel­e­brat­ing her 30th birth­day, Akaloo did the un­think­able and gave up her ac­count­ing job at the Min­istry of Works to cul­ti­vate 225 acres of rice at the Nar­i­va Swamp with her hus­band Ashick Akaloo.

Her de­ci­sion to chuck her job was trig­gered by the vol­ume of work her hus­band, who is 17 years her se­nior, had to un­der­take sin­gle-hand­ed­ly.

"It was just too much for him to do. I watched him toil in the fields from sun­rise and sun­set to start our farm­ing busi­ness and I couldn't help him be­cause of my com­mit­ment else­where," Akaloo re­called.

Feel­ing a sense of guilt, Akaloo said one morn­ing in 1989 she got up and told her hus­band that she want­ed to quit her ac­count­ing job.

"It was not a rash de­ci­sion. I had giv­en it much thought. I felt it was time to be at my hus­band's side, be­come my own boss, en­sure that my chil­dren were prop­er­ly ed­u­cat­ed and stand in de­fence of farm­ers who did not have a voice."

Though fam­i­ly and friends ques­tioned her de­ci­sion, she said they could not dis­suade her.

Thrown in­to deep end

"I knew the role of a farmer en­tailed back break­ing work and sac­ri­fices.

"But I was pre­pared to take the plunge even though the in­dus­try was dom­i­nat­ed by men."

Switch­ing from tal­ly­ing fig­ures in an air-con­di­tioned of­fice to work­ing in a sat­u­rat­ed rice field in harsh con­di­tions was a rude awak­en­ing for Akaloo.

"I knew get­ting in­to agri­cul­ture would have been tough ... the long hours, the risk of you los­ing your crops and hav­ing dif­fi­cul­ty ac­cess­ing loans to start your busi­ness," she re­called on Fri­day.

What she did not cater for was be­ing thrown in­to the deep end.

"I thought I would have on­ly man­aged the farm's fi­nan­cial books, but I had to be­come an all round farmer with my hus­band, who was learn­ing him­self.

"So I had to put my boots on and start plant­i­ng rice seeds, reap­ing, dry­ing pad­dy, learn­ing soil types and the dif­fer­ent fer­tilis­ers and chem­i­cals. It was some­thing I did not ex­pect."

In the be­gin­ning, Akaloo said she learned to cul­ti­vate rice through tri­al and er­ror.

"I came in­to the in­dus­try with no agri­cul­tur­al skills and knowl­edge. I had to learn the hard way, while look­ing af­ter my two kids and hus­band.

"I had to jug­gle be­ing a moth­er, wife, farmer and man­ag­er all at once. It was not easy...the strug­gles were end­less but I put my shoul­ders to the wheel and per­se­vered."

Suc­cess mod­el

Akaloo ad­mit­ted that spend­ing count­less hours in the field made her hone her rice farm­ing skills and turn her farm in­to a suc­cess­ful and mod­el busi­ness.

By 1993 her male coun­ter­parts were com­ing to her for rice farm­ing tips, ideas and sug­ges­tions.

"I was re­gard­ed as the iron la­dy in Nar­i­va. The men gave me re­spect and came for sound busi­ness ad­vice."

Over time, Akaloo al­so band­ed with the male farm­ers and lob­bied in front of Na­tion­al Flour Mills for an in­crease in pad­dy prices.

"We al­so saw a growth in rice pro­duc­tion."

Her fight­ing spir­it even earned her the post of pres­i­dent of the Trinidad Is­land-wide Rice Grow­ers As­so­ci­a­tion (TIR­GA), which she held for ten years. She al­so en­sured that farm­ers who op­er­at­ed on agri­cul­tur­al State lands were pro­vid­ed land tenure.

In the eyes of her male coun­ter­parts, Akaloo was seen as their mouth­piece, rep­re­sen­ta­tive and ad­vis­er.

Earn­ing re­spect

"For stand­ing up with them I earned a lot of re­spect from the men," Akaloo said.

While preg­nant with her third child, Akaloo faced her first set­back.

Their sprawl­ing farm was wiped out by drought.

"It was then I re­alised that one crop could make or break you. We lost thou­sands of dol­lars in one fell swoop, but I did not let that de­ter me. I had to chalk it up as ex­pe­ri­ence and move on."

In 1996, Akaloo faced an­oth­er blow, as the then Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress ad­min­is­tra­tion called on the 15 farm­ers who cul­ti­vat­ed their fields in the swamp to va­cate the lands, af­ter en­vi­ron­men­tal­ists had com­plained that they were de­stroy­ing the flo­ra and fau­na of the pro­tect­ed area.

"We were thrown on the bread­line, left with mil­lions of dol­lars of heavy equip­ment on their hands and loans to re­pay. This brought us to our knees."

Gam­ble pays off

The fol­low­ing year, the dis­placed farm­ers lob­bied for agri­cul­tur­al lands in Ca­roni, which they were al­lo­cat­ed in 2004 un­der the then Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment gov­ern­ment.

In Ca­roni, she al­so led from in front and en­cour­aged the farm­ers to unite for the bet­ter­ment of the sec­tor.

"The mon­ey gen­er­at­ed from our boun­ti­ful crops put food on the ta­ble, pro­vid­ed food for the na­tion and ed­u­cat­ed my three chil­dren."

Akaloo's el­dest son Ri­card, 38, has a Mas­ters in agro-man­age­ment, her 31-year-old daugh­ter Naris­sa is a cos­me­tol­o­gist, while her last child Nabi­la, 24, is pur­su­ing two de­grees–one in psy­chol­o­gy and the oth­er in crim­i­nol­o­gy.

Had she re­mained an ac­coun­tant, Akaloo ad­mit­ted that she would not have been able to ac­com­plished so much.

As vice pres­i­dent of TIR­GA, Akaloo said "farm­ing made me the woman I am to­day. I made it hap­pen. I took a gam­ble and it paid off."

Akaloo said that the few women the in­dus­try ini­tial­ly at­tract­ed were no longer in rice cul­ti­va­tion.

"Many have passed on and moved on to new pur­suits. To­day's woman does not see farm­ing as a vi­able busi­ness...they view it as a hin­drance and as labou­ri­ous."

Now in the prime of her life, Akaloo said she will con­tin­ue to take the in­dus­try for­ward and fight in the farm­ers' de­fence.

"I am pre­pared to die with my boots."