Ancient Practices for a Greener Sahel

We have examined Sahel’s water and food challenges: a semi-arid climate; rapid population growth; soil degradation due to land clearing and inadequate water management. In this final entry, we will explore how these challenges are dealt with by smallholder farmers on the ground.

The Sahelian regrowth

As discussed previously, the French colonists conducted massive land clearing to set up large-scale irrigation schemes, such as ‘Office du Niger’, degrading the soil, displacing locals and taking many’s livelihoods. Under these preconditions, Niger experienced a combination of severe droughts, exploding population in the 1970s (Derrick, 1984). In the hope to tackle the food shortages that followed, farmers cleared more land to expand agriculture, degrading the soil even further.Neiro, a 40 years old farmer from Maradi, Niger, witnessed these events first-hand (Höije and Welch, 2022). As a child, his garden was covered with abundant, lush vegetation, and crops were thriving. Fast forward to 1980, the very same garden was left with none but one single tree.
Elsewhere in Maradi around the same period, in abandoned fields, trees had grown back from cut trunks. The returning farmers were initially dissatisfied that agricultural spaces were taken away, yet very soon discovered that crops planted around trees not only grew better than on cleared lands but become more resistant against variable rainfall. Trees provided shade, reduced moisture evaporation, and replenished the soil with nutrients. 

In Zinder, Niger, farmers are growing crops next to baobab trees, instead of cutting them off (Höije and Welch, 2022)

Encouraging the natural regrowth of trees is actually a common pre-colonial practice: “farmer-managed natural generation” (FMNG). Seeing the benefits brought by tree regrowth, FMNG quickly spread across villages in Niger. Despite being a voluntary, grassroots movement - nowhere comparable to the scale of the Green Great Wall - FMNG has brought millions of trees and increased yields to feed an additional 2.5 million Nigerois (Haglund et al., 2011). Neino himself witness a “fivefold increase” of millets on his own farm (Höije and Welch, 2022).

Combatting salinisation - half moons

In Senegal, Mauritania and Burkina Faso, farmers also turned to an old practice to combat soil salinisation and crusting caused by clearing and inadequate irrigation: half-moon-shaped ponds are carved into the soil to collect water. By breaking the soil crust, and injecting fertilisers, they enhance soil water infiltration, and increase nutrients, hence enabling farmers to plant on previously degraded soil (Zougmoré, Zida & Kambou, 2003). The technique is illustrated in the following video:

A video by the World Food Programme illustrating the half-moon technique

Closing remarks

The journey of water and food in Africa has finally come to an end. Starting in the Sahel, case studies highlighted the importance of irrigation expansion in the face of population growth and climate change. We discussed the cruciality of groundwater for enabling irrigation in arid Africa while examples from North Africa and the Sahel illustrated the contrasting challenges to managing this resource. The blog in particular demonstrated the effectiveness of smallholder farmers’ locally-led practices compared to expensive, large-scale schemes. These traditional practices are our key to restoring past losses and adapting to future challenges in Africa's food-water nexus.

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