By Jocelyn Bell
“I remember when you planted and things grew easily. The land was very fertile,” says Gado Toudou, a Nigerien landowner.
Here in the Sahel, Niger, a semi-arid belt of land just south of the Sahara, global warming and deforestation are slowly turning this region into desert. It’s a major threat to the people, who rely almost exclusively on agriculture for survival.
“We don’t reap as much food when the soil is degraded,” Toudou says. “The earth becomes dry and infertile. There is no foliage for the animals. The result is famine among the people and the animals.”
“It was naked. Just red earth.”
Toudou is one of 25 farmers participating in World Vision’s new eco-farming project, entitled Reducing Poverty and Desertification through Integrated Agro-Forestry Farming Systems. This project is designed to stop the unrelenting advance of the encroaching desert.
Earlier this year, he attended a 10-day World Vision training course on tree planting and land renewal. World Vision then gave him enough seeds and plastic pots to grow about 350 saplings. He planted about 80 trees in his fields and sold the remaining saplings to a nursery, earning about $43.
Since the start of this year, project participants like Toudou have planted 1,967 acacia trees and 100 apple trees.
“Before we planted these trees, there was nothing here. Not even grass. It was naked. Just red earth,” says Issaka Hayatou, a World Vision agriculture facilitator working in Niger. Now, surveying Toudou’s land, Issaka sees grass and shrubs returning to this dry, sandy earth.
Acacia Useful From Roots to Leaves
The acacia trees in Toudou’s field have many benefits. Their roots hold the earth in place so it doesn’t erode in the wind. They grow tall quickly, blocking wind and casting shade, cooling the area around them.
Apart from the precipitation during the rainy season, acacia trees don’t need to be watered. When their leaves fall to the ground and decay, they give nutrients to the soil. All of this supports other plant life around them, including Toudou’s crops.
When the acacias mature in three years, Toudou’s wife will mix seeds from the trees into the family’s porridge. “The seeds are very good to feed children,” says Issaka. “They give a lot of protein. They’re also good to feed chickens so they’ll get bigger and lay eggs.”
Toudou inspects the acacias with the youngest of his seven children, Abdourahamane, a 10-year-old boy, and Saraï, a nine-year-old girl.
“My hope for them,” he says, “is that they will never know about desertification. That before they are adults, the problem of desertification will be eradicated.”
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