“If you want to know how to grow crops in the face of climate change, drought, and land degradation, ask Ousséni Kindo, Ousséni Zoromé, or Yacouba Sawadogo—three farmers in Burkina Faso’s Yatenga region.”
These words began an article yesterday by Landscapes for People, Food and Nature Initiative Co-organizer World Resources Institute. Referring to participants in a workshop held in Burkina Faso on strategies to combat food insecurity and adapt to climate change, these words also allude to the multiple livelihood and ecosystem benefits these farmers are achieving from improved water management practices. While article authors Chris Reij, Florence Landsberg, and Robert Winterbottom argue that the current policy environment in Burkina Faso does not support moving such shifts in practices to scale, they also note that initial multi-stakeholder dialogues between farmers, government officials, researchers, and NGOs indicate the possibility of a brighter, more resilient future on the horizon.
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Successful Farmer-Led Agricultural Practices
Many smallholder farmers in Burkina Faso operate on degraded lands with low-quality soil and inadequate rainfall. They’ve spent years learning how to grow food in these conditions. The practices they’ve refined can help boost farmers’ incomes, reduce food insecurity, and increase resilience to climate change.
For example, Burkina Faso’s farmers dig small holes or planting pits (called zaï) on barren, degraded land and fill them with organic matter, adding nutrients to the soil where they sow their crops. They also construct stone lines (called contour bunds) on their farmland to slow down water runoff, prevent erosion, and assist in recharging the groundwater. These water-harvesting techniques have allowed farmers to restore completely degraded land to much higher levels of production. Since the mid-1980s, it is estimated that farmers have rehabilitated 200,000 to 300,000 hectares of quasi-unproductive lands, producing an additional 80,000 to 120,000 tons of cereals on their lands.
These simple water-harvesting techniques have produced a co-benefit: an increase in the number and diversity of on-farm trees. The manure, which farmers use in the planting pits, contains seeds of trees and bushes which were eaten by the livestock. Besides cereal crops, trees also grow in the pits and along the stone bunds. When farmers protect and manage these seedlings, new agroforestry systems emerge—a process known as “regreening.” These regenerated trees and bushes play a key role in restoring the productivity of degraded farmland and provide multiple benefits: fodder for livestock; fruit, firewood, and poles for construction; a more agricultural-friendly micro-climate; improved soil fertility; higher groundwater levels; and decreased soil erosion.
Read the full blog post on WRI’s Insights Blog.
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