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Planting indigenous fruit and medicinal trees has changed the lives of tens of thousands of poor people in rural Africa.  Women are feeding their families, sending their children to school and improving their status at home thanks to a successful IFAD-supported programme

There are small miracles every day at the IFAD-supported World Agroforestry Centre tree domestication programme. The first phase of the programme, which ran from 1999 to 2003, was an outstanding success, increasing incomes in rural communities in Cameroon, as well as in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon and Nigeria. As a result of the programme, thousands of farmers are still benefiting from the domestication, cultivation and sale of fruit and medicinal trees. The current phase aims to consolidate and expand on these successes.

Higher incomes mean children can attend school

“The plants we produce in the nursery have changed our lives,” says Delphine Misse. “My husband has been able to build this house, and our eldest daughter, who is 12, was able to join secondary school after completing her primary education. The school costs 260,000 CFAF (US$500) a year and it is because of the plants we sell that we can afford it.”

The Misse family and the other members of their farming group in the village of Lekie-Assi, in Cameroon’s Centre province, are delighted by the success of their nursery. They are domesticating indigenous trees and improving valuable exotic species. Incomes have risen as a result of their newly-acquired skills in propagation techniques such as marcotting (air-layering), grafting and the rooting of cuttings.

“This year we earned more from selling plants than we did from our cocoa,” says Misse. Cocoa is the family’s usual cash crop.

The farmers’ group in Lekie-Assi has come a long way in a short time. Six years ago, they were trekking 15 kilometres to a central pilot nursery, where the World Agroforestry Centre and its national partners were offering training on vegetative propagation techniques. After the farmers finished their training and had mastered the techniques, the Centre helped them establish their own nursery in 2001.

Women improve their status

The programme has been particularly effective in improving the livelihoods and status of women.

“Men had for long monopolized the production and commercialization of cocoa, and they spent their earnings themselves,” says Angeline Mamoule, secretary of Merunga, a group of 25 women in Ngalli II village of the Centre province. The Merunga group started working with the World Agroforestry Centre’s researchers in 2004. The women have since planted 283 fruit, medicinal and spice trees.

“Today, a woman who brings home money is her husband’s pride,” says Mamoule. “By planting a tree she equally seals her place in the marital home.”

The Sang women’s group in the North West province has established a reputation for high quality tree planting materials. Its members have become skilful tree domesticators for good reasons.

“During the sowing period, we had only palm oil to eat with our staple cassava or plantains, compared to other villages where people could additionally have roasted or boiled African plums (safou) or even pears (avocados),” says Beatrice Ngum, chair of the Sang women’s group. “Women realized that after selling cassava, there was nothing left to take to the market.”

The tree domestication programme has enabled the women in the Sang group to select the trees they like and reproduce them. In one year, the women of Sang nursed 600 kola nut trees, 200 avocado trees, some African plum trees and orange trees.

“Here, we die of malnutrition, not disease,” says Ngum. “So we have adopted tree domestication that will improve our family health by providing more food, by increasing our income and by giving us the opportunity to regenerate important medical species out of sacred forests.”

Trees help a fragile environment

Tree planting also has important environmental implications.

“Trees planted on fragile ecosystems like hill sides can help stabilize them,” says Ebenezar Asaah, a tree crop agronomist at the World Agroforestry Centre. “Their roots penetrate deep into the soil, reducing the risk of landslides.”

“Besides that, tree-root systems absorb leached nutrients from deep in the soil and make the nutrients available to the growing trees. The trees grow strong with many leaves and bear fruits and spices….then, the tree products are consumed, the older leaves drop and decompose around the tree, reconstituting the soil structure and enhancing its fertility,” says Asaah.

The World Agroforestry Centre works with poor farmers and other partners to conduct research for development. It uses science to generate knowledge on the complex role of trees in livelihoods and the environment, and fosters use of this knowledge to improve decisions and practices affecting  poor people.

Source: IFAD