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Degraded land in the Nioumakélé region recovers its fertility thanks to the planting of live fences around plots
The
Nioumakélé Small Producers Support Project (APPN), launched
in 1992 by IFAD, enabled small farmers to organize themselves
around intensive development sites, then introduced the system
of contouring to combat erosion, encouraged mixed cropping and
promoted the use of improved plant varieties. Apart from introducing
live fencing, the project also organized milk producers, thus
making it easier for Agence Française de Développement to
launch a local milk processing plant in 2002.
The carefully enclosed, green plots of the Nioumakélé region on Nzwani Island
contrast with the sterile, bare slopes known as padza that can be seen
elsewhere throughout the Comoros archipelago. In this region, populated essentially
by poor farmers, the results of the live fence technique have been spectacular.
In the space of 20 years, the landscape of the poorest region in the archipelago
has been transformed. “The land was very severely degraded,” says Mariame Anthony,
an agricultural expert and head of the region’s agricultural training centre.
“Erosion was very pronounced and productivity was low.”
The best land in the Nioumakélé region previously belonged to a French colonial
company exporting ylang-ylang, cloves and vanilla, while Comorians had fairly
inaccessible, unproductive land on slopes. Furthermore, traditional rice-growing
techniques based on a slash-and-burn system and the effects of population pressure
on land had accelerated soil degradation over the years, transforming it into padza.
Thirty years of successive innovations
Over the years, there have been a number of interventions in the region to try
to remedy the situation, in particular through the Office for the Development
of Agricultural Production, which began soil conservation activities in 1970.
Fifteen years later, the Company for the Economic Development of the Comoros
was concerned with land distribution, the development of cash crops and the combination
of food-crop production and livestock farming. Then the United Nations Development
Programme (UNDP) and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
(FAO) introduced the dung shed concept.
The farmers themselves initially improved on the dung shed system through the
technique of tethering the cow and moving it around the plot, rather than going
out themselves to feed it and gather the manure. The technique of using hedges
to enclose plots, introduced and disseminated by IFAD, then completed the process
by combining the various approaches. The live fence principle is fairly simple:
the plot is enclosed with a live fence of fodder trees, composed mainly of sandragon
and gliricidia, with intermediate hedges of penissetum, on which the cow feeds,
tied to a stake, the cow produces manure, which is used to fertilize the land.
The cow is moved around so that the farmer’s plot (or plots) is covered. One
plot is dedicated to the production of fodder, grass and legumes to feed the
cow or for sale. Moreover, farmers with several cows can rent them out to farmers
who have none so that they too can fertilize their plots.
Higher yielding dairy cows
As a complement to their agricultural activities, in the 1970s FAO and IFAD introduced
Friesian bulls in order to improve the genetic stock of dairy cows. As a result,
the average daily yield is now 8 to 10 litres of milk, as against 1 to 2 litres
for local cows, while champion milkers can produce up to 18 litres a day.
Genetic improvement of cows has had major economic repercussions, tripling or
even quadrupling household income. Milk is a product in high demand, especially
during Ramadan and in summer, the season when migrants return.
In addition, the increase in children’s milk consumption has led to an improvement
in the nutrition of this section of the population, which previously suffered
from a severe nutritional imbalance. The success of these genetic improvement
activities, combined with the results of the pilot artificial insemination project
carried out in collaboration with Vétérinaires sans frontières (VSF) of Belgium,
has encouraged IFAD to expand such interventions in its new National Programme
for Sustainable Human Development, launched in 2007.
The market, a persistent problem
While live fencing has had a beneficial effect on the region’s agricultural
production and helped to reduce families’ poverty, it has certainly
not solved all the problems. Yssouf Mdigo, a farmer and herder
in the region, manages to make ends meet by having another full-time
job in Mutsamudu, the island’s capital, where he transports goods
in a wheelbarrow. He and his wife have three plots, but the market
is so small that they would have to diversify their agricultural
production further in order to dispose of their produce.
“The economic situation means that I have
to work a long way from home,” Yssouf Mdigo says. So their agricultural
production does not yet meet their financial needs, although it does
cover the family’s food and nutritional needs, which is already a
major step forward.
Nioumakélé: an example of sustainable agriculture in an over-populated
area
Despite persistent difficulties for the poorest families, the live
fence technique has enabled an entire region to be rehabilitated, despite
the fact that soil degradation seemed irreversible with the growth
in the rural population. With the commitment of farmers, the establishment
of appropriate agricultural techniques and the intensification of livestock
production, the Nioumakélé experience vividly shows that, contrary
to all expectations, an arid region can overcome the padza and
regain its fertility.
Source: IFAD
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| Unexpected effects |
Like most of the farmers in the region, Yssouf Mdigo
and his wife Kurashia Budube own several plots, widely
scattered and each no larger than 0.4 hectares.
They are all enclosed with hedges, like those of their
neighbours, and they have one cow, which meets their
fertilizer needs. “Before we adopted the live fence and
tethered cow technique, we grew nothing but upland rice.
Today we have cassava, sweet potato, taro, banana, pigeon
pea and so on. In good harvest years, we have even been
able to sell some,” says Yssouf Mdigo. The Mdigo family
also sells fodder and milk.
However, apart from a clear improvement in land productivity and in income, which
made the installation of live fences such a success, the technique also had an
unexpected effect on the division of farm labour between men and women.
“When we grew rice, only the woman could work the land,”
says Yssouf Mdigo – for rice-growing is an occupation exclusively
reserved to women. “Since we changed crops with the introduction
of live fences, the man can work without embarrassment.”
He thus works to clear undergrowth, install contouring
and help his wife with the heaviest tasks. |
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