Dec 10 2009

Hope for the Farmers of Africa

Posted by: Jonathan Marshall

Two years ago, the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned that water shortages and crop failures caused by global warming could afflict between 75 million and 250 million people in Africa this century.

The report didn't tell inhabitants of the continent anything they don't already know. According to the London Economist, in a story titled "A Catastrophe is Looming:"

This year's drought is the worst in east Africa since 2000, and possibly since 1991. Famine stalks the land. The failure of rains in parts of Ethiopia may increase the number needing food handouts by 5m, in addition to the 8m already getting them . . . The International Committee of the Red Cross says famine in Somalia is going to be worse than ever. . . . In fractious northern Uganda cereal output is likely to fall by half. Parts of South Sudan, Eritrea, the Central African Republic and Tanzania are suffering too.

In addition to drought, war and government mismanagement, African farmers also must make do with severely depleted soil, lean in organic matter and nutrients, that forms a tough crust.   No one's thumb seemed green enough to make plants grow under such conditions, until recently.

Now there's some remarkable cause for hope. Spearheaded by the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), with the endorsement of the World Bank, farmers are using an innovative technique to restore production in eroded, denuded and abandoned farmlands in many arid parts of the continent.

In major stretches of the West Africa, ICRISAT is teaching farmers to dig compost-filled planting pits called zai holes, which hold water for long periods after sporadic rains fall. They prevent soil from blowing away and foster growth of deep-rooted vegetables and fruit trees like the Moringa.

Moringa leaves, said to be Niger's most popular vegetable, have "seven times as much Vitamin C as oranges, four times as much Vitamin A as carrots, four times as much calcium as milk, thrice as much potassium as is found in bananas and twice as much protein as is found in milk," according to ICRISAT.

One farmer in Burkina Faso, Yacouba Savadogo, has become world famous for his successful experiments growing sorghum and millet in zai pits. The manure in his pits attracted termites, which built tunnels that broke up the soil. Soon trees began sprouting from seeds in the manure; he nurtured them, and in return, they provided shade, cooled his land and prevented erosion, increasing yields.

"This is probably the largest environmental transformation in the Sahel, if not in Africa," said Chris Reij, a Dutch geographer who's been working in the region for decades. In Niger alone, he says, farmers have grown some 200 million trees. "There are fifteen to twenty times more trees than there were in 1975, which is completely opposite of what most people tend to believe."

The return of this ancient farming practice is transforming social relationships as well. ICRISAT notes that women, who have been allocated the most degraded lands, have been able to transform their holdings into productive farms and earn a living for the first time.

"By working with women to grow indigenous vegetable and fruit trees, we have not only restored the self-worth of women but also enabled them to better care for their children and families as well as make some money on top of it all," said Prof. Dov Pasternak, a scientist at ICRISAT.

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