Off the Margin

Women recruited to bioreclaim degraded lands restore farmland previously considered useless and assert their right to own and cultivate it.

As climate change threatens to worsen desertification across the Sudano-Sahelian region of West and Central Africa, the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) has developed an innovative technique for reclaiming severely degraded, abandoned farmlands and bringing them back into production.

This innovation is highly significant in a region where scarce and fragile arable lands are under extreme pressure to produce more food for a burgeoning population amid climatic variation. At the same time, the recovered lands are restoring to Niger’s largely marginalized women their right to make a livelihood through agriculture. According to a study undertaken by the International Institute for Environment and Development, some areas of Niger “are witnessing the emergence of a first generation of women who do not work.”

The report adds: “In Jirtawa, we found a second generation of landless women who have never farmed because they never had the opportunity to help their mothers in her gamana (portion of land allocated to family members), as she was landless too.”

Extremely adverse weather and intensifying population pressure seriously affect agricultural productivity in the Sahel. In Niger, population growth has brought progressive fragmentation of farm holdings, whose ownership and farming rights are generally vested in men. This has systematically edged women out of farming, leaving them without the means to adequately care for their families or earn an income. Likewise, soils in Niger are severely degraded, as wind and water erosion remove nutrients and leave top soils that are hard to plow. Droughts cause crop failure in 2 out of every 5 years.

Photo: ICRISAT.

An ICRISAT research team led by Dov Pasternak has looked for ways to reclaim degraded land so that landless and marginalized women will benefit. Pasternak reports that 3 years of the Bioreclamation of Degraded Lands (BDL) Project have shown that, “by helping women grow indigenous vegetable and fruit trees, we have not only restored the self-worth of women but also enabled them to provide better care for their families, besides making extra money.”

He estimates the value of fruit and vegetables produced at about US$1,200 per hectare. The additional income is remarkable, considering that the women’s association in the project area allots only 100-300 square meters for each of its 50 members — and that this is the marginal environment of the Sahel.

The BDL system is a simple innovation with high potential for widespread adoption by farmers. It includes rebuilding the fertility of degraded soils, water management and general land reclamation using drought-tolerant trees and annuals. ICRISAT scientists have taught women how to create a favorable medium for planting crops that will enable effective rooting as well as how to manage soils to prevent waterlogging.

Farmers placing manure in zai pits in Niger. Photo: ICRISAT.

Additionally, farmers have learned how to harvest rainwater on the farm by using micro-catchments, or planting pits, known as zai holes, which are able to hold water for prolonged periods after the rains. Zai holes also hold soil and compost to support the growth of locally adapted, deep-rooted and highly nutritious fruit and vegetable crops such as the Pomme du Sahel (Ziziphus Mauritania) and Moringa stenopetala.

Pomme du Sahel fruit is rich in iron, calcium and phosphorus, and it has ten times as much vitamin C as apples. The leaves of the Moringa tree, Niger’s most popular vegetable, have seven times as much vitamin C as oranges, four times as much vitamin A as carrots and four times as much calcium as milk.

The BDL model has mobilized a group of 100 women in the Dosso Region, 120 kilometers from the capital, Niamey. They successfully demanded and obtained degraded land from their village chiefs and are now reclaiming their right under Nigerien land law to cultivate and own the land.

The World Vegetable Center and ICRISAT have jointly identified a short-duration cultivar of okra (Albemoschus esculentus), a favorite food in Africa produced in the Sahel mostly by women and highly suitable for growing in zai holes. These and other crop trees are being tested for their value in reclaiming West Africa’s degraded farmlands, as they typically tolerate drought, high soil salinity and waterlogging.

These innovations hold the promise of greening vast swathes of degraded land to create a new horticultural frontier for Africa — one that is cultivated and sustained by strong, empowered women.