My experience learning from Mary Mathuli, a smallholder farmer in rural Kenya, taught me a couple important lessons. First, my farming skills — like holding a chicken and swinging a hoe — need some work. Second, and more importantly, I got a personal reminder of how resourceful and resilient African smallholder farmers like Mary are. Battered by years of drought and other extreme weather patterns, they are developing new skills and embracing new technologies to adapt to some of the toughest conditions for growing crops and raising livestock.