An example of blended agro-ecological and conventional farming: growing maize with 'fertilizer trees' and reduced inorganic fertilizer

Nitrogen-fixing 'fertilizer trees' have long been used by farmers in farming-difficult areas such as parts of the Sahel. Rainfall is poor, the soils are often sandy and infertile, and yet there are several varieties of acacia and other nitrogen-fixing trees which do well there.

That these trees benefit other crops growing under or between them has long been known. What is perhaps fairly new in recent years is the more scientific study of the phenomenon, and its deliberate encouragement in parts of Africa that have not previously widely used these trees as an additional soil fertility supplementation strategy.

Given all this, 'Can Integration of Legume Trees Increase Yield Stability in Rainfed Maize Cropping Systems in Southern Africa?' seems like a somewhat superflous question whose answer is already known.

Nevertheless, researchers at the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF) have been undertaking a 12 year study to find answers to the question. The 'hook' they used to justify the study and give the impression of finding something new was that they were studying the 'stability' of the yields of maize intercropped with Gliricidia sepium.

Amongst the findings:

* the control fields of conventional (inorganic fertilizer-using) maize monocultures had the highest

* close behind were the yields for maize intercropped with Gliricidia sepium and then supplemented with 50% of the inorganic fertilizer that would normally be used in 'conventional' maize monocultures.

This is an interesting practice long used by 'resource poor' farmers-using 'agro-ecological' farming techniques to stretch out and supplement the relatively small amounts of inorganic fertilizers they can afford to buy. This is real world small holder farming, not the pie-in-the-sky 'fully organic or death' mantras mouthed by activists in cushy donor-funded offices in town, worlds away from the realities of scratching out a living from the land..

The study's conclusion: "Maize yields remain more stable in maize–gliricidia intercropping than in fertilized maize monoculture in the long term, although average yields may be higher with full fertilization."

Hardly a ground-breaking study or findings, but still interesting.

African Agriculture

British forest firm that evicted Ugandan peasants closes shop

A British firm accused by Oxfam International of illegally evicting some 20,000 Ugandan peasants from arable land to plant trees suspended operations in early January, a decision it said stemmed from the withdrawal of $14 million in needed new investment funding.

In a statement e-mailed from London, the New Forest Company (NFC)’s Anthony Silverman claimed they 'lost' an additional $1 million of financing from the World Bank.

Oxfam, an aid and development charity, caused ripples last September when it alleged that NFC forcibly evicted poor villagers in Kiboga and Mubende districts, depriving them of livelihood and money to send their children to school.

Oxfams’s Executive Director Jerry Hobbs at the time said the Ugandan case “clearly shows how land grabbing is slipping through the net of existing safeguards, which are intended to ensure the protection of vulnerable people.”

In response, NFC promised to investigate the allegations it described as “extremely serious” but made no reference to outcomes of the probe, if it ever occurred, in its recent statement.

“Having planted millions of trees annually for the past six years and led the creation of a modern Ugandan forestry industry, we are sad to suspend tree-planting and laying off workers, forcing people back into poverty,” NFC Chief Executive Julian Ozanne was quoted as saying.

more...The Monitor

Palm oil need not harm environment or local communities, finds study

The exponential growth in the palm oil sector, which accounts for a third of the total global trade of 130 million tons of vegetable oil annually, is strongly challenged by indigenous peoples and civil society organisations. Indiscriminate land clearing and acquisition for oil palm plantations is resulting in rapid habitat loss, species extinctions and alarming greenhouse gas emissions. It has also led to the dispossession of both indigenous peoples and the rural poor who depend traditionally on forest habitats for their survival.

With the global biofuel industry set to double between 2007-2017, the choices nations make today will have far reaching social, economic and environmental consequences. This new study by Forest Peoples Programme, SawitWatch, Samdhana Institute and RECOFTC - The Center for People and Forests, documents for the first time the various ways in which oil palm plantations are expanding across South East Asia.
The study complements the better known experiences in Malaysia, Indonesia and Papua New Guinea – the region’s top three producers accounting for over 80% of traded palm oil - with new case studies from Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam and the Philippines.

“What we have found,” notes Abetnego Tarigan, Executive Director of the Indonesian NGO SawitWatch is that “while expansion is in part being driven by rising global demand for edible oils and biofuels, as well as escalating commodity prices and surging international investment, domestic policies are also significant. Governments are promoting oil palm to meet rising domestic demand for edible oils, to reduce their countries’ dependency on imported fossil fuels and to limit their loss of foreign exchange. In doing so, they need to take responsibility for the impacts of their domestic policies.”

James Bampton, Program Coordinator for RECOFTC – The Center for People and Forests, based in Bangkok notes: “Oil palm need not be bad news for local people. After all, it has been part of mixed farming systems in West Africa for thousands of years. This study shows that where the circumstances are favourable, as in Thailand where lowland farmers, have relatively secure rights, they themselves are choosing to plant oil palm as a lucrative crop.”

The study, titled Oil Palm Expansion in South East Asia: trends and implications for local communities and indigenous peoples, edited by Marcus Colchester and Sophie Chao, shows that the consequences of oil palm expansion for local communities and indigenous peoples are extremely varied: “When we compared the national experiences with palm oil” says Marcus Colchester, Director of the Forest Peoples Programme, “We found that where farmers’ and indigenous peoples’ lands are secure and where there is rule of law, oil palm tends to develop modestly as a small-holder crop with better outcomes for local people in terms of income, equity and livelihoods. However, where land rights are insecure or law enforcement weak, oil palm tends to expand as very large company-owned estates with serious problems for prior occupants and workers, ensuing land conflicts and human rights abuse.”

“The implications of our findings are very clear” notes Nonette Royo of the Samdhana Institute based in the Philippines: “To ensure that oil palm only develops in beneficial ways, governments need to reform their laws and then enforce them so that local peoples’ rights are first respected and then protected. Without such protections, expansion is likely to benefit investors, traders and national elites at the expense of the rural poor and vulnerable ecosystems.”

The report presents case studies from across the region to back its policy recommendations as well as an assessment of the Round Table on Sustainable Oil, the premier agency tasked with minimizing the environmental and social impacts of rising regional palm oil consumption.

To download the report visit: http://www.forestpeoples.org/oil-palm-expansion-in-south-east-asia-trends-implications-local-communities-indigenous-peoples

Land investment in Africa is much more than a legal matter

by Chido Makunike

London-based New Forests Company (NFC) was formed in 2004; its management’s aim being for it to become East Africa’s biggest forester, which it has achieved. As a new company in an enlightened age different from the notorious plantations that began in Africa's colonial days, it was also expected to implement a friendlier, 'win-win' model of plantation investment.

A new report by NGO Oxfam International suggests it has not met the latter expectation.  In the report The New Forests Company and its Uganda plantations, Oxfam tells of NFC's 90,000 hectare forest concessions spread across Uganda, Tanzania, Mozambique, and Rwanda. It plants and harvests timber on 27,000 hectares of of ‘underutilized and/or degraded’ land in those countries.

''The plantations contribute jobs and revenue, along with the timber products those countries need as they develop and which would otherwise be logged from natural forests.'' In line with NFC's claims of being an environmentally and socially clean ('ethical')operator, it hopes to use carbon credits as an additional revenue source, according to the Oxfam report. ''NFC runs education, health, and income-generation programmes with local communities,'' and is ''developing a system to quantify the positive social impacts'' of its interventions.

NFC is well-connected politically at all levels in the countries in which it operates, and has been able to attract investment from varied international sources. It has an overall very good pedigree. On its website, the company describes itself as a ''sustainable and socially responsible forestry company which will deliver both attractive returns to investors and significant social and environmental benefits.''

Given how contentious land is, particularly in Africa, Oxfam says in the introduction to the report, ''NFC appears, on the face of it, to be the design blueprint for how a young modern business can conduct
a major land investment in Africa in a responsible and ethical way.''

However, Oxfam alleges that despite this pretty public picture of New Forest Company, it had obtained many of its forest land parcels under dubious, controversial circumstances, some of them almost reminiscent of old style colonial land grabs of decades ago.

Asks Oxfam, ''Given all this, how is it possible that thousands of people in affected communities have
alleged that land clearances, which have taken place to make way for NFC’s operations in Uganda, have been accompanied by distress and violence, and have left many in a state of poverty?''

The Oxfam report then goes on to catalogue examples of an estimated 22,500 people who are said to have been forcibly removed from their land by Uganda's National Forestry Authority (NFA) to make way for NFC. These people were declared to have been ‘illegal encroachers’ on the land.

NFC staff are accused of taking part in evictions, although the organization denies this, stating that relocations were 'voluntary' and in any case only the responsibility of a government body, the NFA. NFC does admit evictions took place to make room for it, but that the number of those affected was no more than 15,000. and that its staff were only on hand 'to observe the eviction process' by the Ugandan NFA.

Evictees claim that the evictions were often violent, and have left them landless and impoverished. Among their complaints are the lack of consultation, lack of alternative land and inadequate compensation.

Most of these are not people with legal title to the land. As all over Africa, most peoples' claim of occupancy  of land is according to 'traditional' norms which predate the colonial-era introduction of central governments, western law and title deeds. The continuing, still not fully resolved conflicts between the two clashing systems is one reason almost every African countries has latent 'land issues,' some more obvious than others. In all countries the two systems co-exist and operate side by side, but increasingly, as in this case, they clash.

Central government may now be the legal title holder of land such as in dispute in the NFC case, but that is not to say that it is easy, straightforward or without consequence for that ownership right to be exercised over communities that can sometimes trace their ancestry on those lands back centuries; long before modern governments like Uganda's came onto the scene. How do you weigh government's present-day legal ownership of that land against the 'traditional' occupation of it by communities, going back decades or centuries?

Yet on the other hand, and largely unexamined by organizations like Oxfam because it is not their ideological inclination to do it, is modern-day central government's right and responsibility to put land to use which has the potential to scale up benefits for the entire country. As the needs of 'development' creep in and grow, how long and how justifiably can communities resist eviction and resettlement only on the basis of long traditional tenure? Is it just the conditions of eviction (forced, violent, uncompensated, etc) on question here, or whether the government should have at all exercised its legal right to evict 'encroachers' and put in place what it perceives as more economically useful tenants?

How best can the sensibilities of local communities and 'national' needs as adjudged by governments be balanced? Is it always possible or justifiable to bend in favor of local sensibilities, or can a bigger national-benefit case be sometimes made in favor of over-ruling those local sensibilities? Is a foreign land investment always, necessarily a 'grab?' If so, is it sometimes justifiable for a government to 'grab' land from locals for the perceived 'greater good?'        

For societies still very much in transition from the old 'traditional' to the new western-imposed 'modern' mores, the answers to these questions are from as clear cut as they might at first have seemed to the host government and the investor in this case. In the colonial days such evictions were simply justified by the fact of conquest. But in 2011, where governments have to at least try to present a facade of being representative of and responsive to the people they rule over, things get a lot more complicated.

NFC appears to be aware of these complications. It is reported to state in a report from 2010 that ‘using the law is not always the appropriate course of action...irrespective of the legal position we have a moral obligation, and a pragmatic need, to win hearts and minds and mitigate negative consequences of our investment.’

This is a lot more than many investors in Africa's modern day land rush are either aware of or willing to pay attention to. The sentiments attributed to the company would appear to cement NFC's image as a particularly informed and sensitive investor, which only makes the charges of forced evictions made against them seem even more shocking.


Investing in land in Africa is far more than just a western-style legal process. All these countries may have adopted a western-style legal system, but everywhere it is in a transitional state of co-existence with traditional systems with much deeper roots than the relatively new imported ones. These societies have a hard enough time trying to avoid constant conflicts between the two systems, but when a foreign entity such as NFC gets involved in an issue involving that cultural clash, it adds an added explosive element.

Governments who should know better than to simply invoke their legal right of dominion over land to ride roughshod over local communities often do so out of cynicism and lack of respect for their citizens. They are used to pretending to respect them at election time and more or less treating them dismissively like the old colonial governments used to do.

Investors, on the other hand, particularly those few like NFC that appeared to have read African land history, thoroughly done their investment homework and seem to have their hearts in the right place, often succumb to the temptation to cut corners because of the sometimes unreasonably optimistic projections they would have provided to their own investors.

Something will likely be worked out to save face for all the important players in the NFC-Uganda NFA-local communities saga. But it will be at the cost of NFC having lost a lot of its 'ethical investor' credibility, which will not be so easy to fully regain. No matter how this ends up, denying that its staff took part in violent evictions while admitting that they were indeed present, but only  'to observe the eviction process' sounds pitifully pathetic of NFC. It is not exactly the robust defense you would expect from a new-fangled ''socially responsible forestry company,'' is it?!

It is a recurring theme in the current African land rush: investors who may do all their business and agronomy numbers right, get all the legal t's crossed and i's dotted and get government support, but neglect the additional crucial issue NFC ironically mentions: to win the support and respect of local communities, who often at best have ambivalent relations with their own governments. A new foreign company that goes into an area on the basis of nothing more than legal papers from the central government has possibly created long term problems and ill will for itself, especially where communities do not perceive government as being defenders of their interests.          

As the African land rush continues unabated, attracting many investors perhaps as well funded but otherwise much less knowledgeable and prepared than NFC appeared to be on paper, expect a lot more land conflict fireworks.

African Agriculture     

British timber firm accused of, denies illegally evicting 20,000 Ugandans

by Emmanuel Gyezaho

The revelation of the is contained in a report, Land and Power, released on October 28 by British NGO Oxfam, which notes that speculators, pension funds and global agri-businesses from rich countries have been quietly acquiring large chunks of land in developing countries such as Uganda, South Sudan and Indonesia, leading to conflict, hunger and human rights abuses.

Oxfam reported that many evictees told of how they were forcibly removed and have been left destitute, without enough food or money to send their children to school.

In a press statement, Oxfam International's executive director Jerry Hobbs said the Uganda case "clearly shows how land grabs are slipping through the net of existing safeguards which are intended to ensure the protection of vulnerable people."

However, the British timber company denies any involvement in the evictions.

In an email to this newspaper yesterday, the company's head of corporate responsibility, Kate Sharum, wrote that New Forests Company (NFC) "takes Oxfam's allegations extremely seriously and will conduct an immediate and thorough investigation of them. Our understanding of these resettlements is that they were legal, voluntary and peaceful and our first hand observations of them confirmed this."

The Ugandan National Forestry Authority (NFA) granted licences over the plantation areas to NFC in 2005 and authorised the eviction of local residents, which took place by February 2010 in Mubende and July 2010 in Kiboga. The NFA says that the people living there were illegal encroachers on forest land and that their evictions were justified.

NFC presents itself as a "sustainable and socially responsible forestry company." It has applied for carbon credits for carbon offsetting, and says it creates jobs in rural areas and builds schools and health facilities as part of its community development programme.

NFC maintains that, in Mubende and Kiboga, locals left the land voluntarily and that, in any event, it would bear no responsibility for evictions from land licensed to it. The company said that it did not evict and it "has very limited rights and certainly no rights to evict anyone."

But in tits report, Oxfam said that NFC's operations highlight how the current system of international standards - designed to ensure that people are not adversely affected as a result of large-scale transfers of land use rights - does not work.

"The serious impacts of the operations on local villagers, raise particular concerns given that NFC operations are supported by international investment from institutions including the World Bank's private sector lending arm, the International Finance Corporation (IFC), as well as the European Investment Bank (EIB) and HSBC, all of which claim to uphold high social and environmental standards."

Oxfarm in its report blames the company for following the NFA in describing the displaced groups, some of whom claim to have spent their entire lives on the land, as 'illegal encroachers' and 'trespassers'.

According to NFA, "the majority of people who had settled within the land had done so illegally", with the exception of 31 families that could demonstrate such ownership. NFA says that "no families in Kiboga have demonstrated rights to the land they used to occupy."

The 20,000 villagers, however, believe that they have clear legal rights to the land they occupied, and both communities took the case to the High Court to protect those rights. These claims were resisted by NFC and NFA, and it ignored the High Court order and evicted them from the land.

Residents from Kiboga state that they were invited to move onto the land in the 1970s by the Idi Amin regime. They also say that the government recognized their rights to stay on the land, allowing them to build schools and establishing administrative structures.

Many of the people who lived in the Mubende concession area say they were allocated land in the area as Second World War veterans, who fought in Egypt or Burma for the British, or their descendants. Others say they bought, were gifted or inherited land during the 1980s and 1990s.

The residents told Oxfam that the army and police were deployed in the area to enforce the evictions, and that many people were beaten during the process. Some villagers also say that casual labourers, whom they believe were employed by NFC, joined the police and army in burning homes, destroying crops and butchering livestock.

The residents who took the company to the High Court allege that NFC trespassed on their land, destroyed homes, crops and animals during the eviction.

NFC, however, denies involvement in any evictions or violence and says "there were no incidences of injury, physical violence or destruction of property during the voluntary vacation processes that have been brought to the attention of NFC".

In support of this position, NFC points to a surveillance audit for the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), which notes "there were no incidences of injury to the encroachers or forceful eviction reported during the clearance process in Mubende".

NFC denies breaching any court orders because "NFC was not responsible for any evictions and says that evictions from forest reserves are solely in the hands of the government and its designated authorities."

The residents, however, claim in the report that none of them, and no one they know, who had lost their homes and livelihoods, had received compensation or alternative land to date. Some say that local authorities offered compensation, but this has come to nothing.

Documents, however, show that Kiboga residents were offered alternative land which they rejected because it provided insufficient space and was merely a temporary solution.

NFC accepts that the failure to provide compensation "is of great concern to NFC for both risk mitigation and ethical reasons". The company said in the report that it offered to be part of the compensation process but was prohibited from doing so by the NFA.

"However, as licensees, we are expressly prohibited from offering anyone on government land any compensation."

Oxfam, however, states in its report that the legalistic approach taken by NFC in response to the court orders and on the issue of compensation is inappropriate for an ethical corporation, especially given the international standards to which the company says it adheres.

"The New Forests Company takes Oxfam's allegations extremely seriously and will conduct an immediate and thorough investigation of them. Our understanding of these resettlements is that they were legal, voluntary and peaceful and our first hand observations of them confirmed this.

This has been corroborated on a number of occasions by meticulous audits of the company by highly respected international organisations including the FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) and the IFC (International Finance Corporation, part of World Bank). The FSC concluded that "Officials consider Namwasa one of their most peaceful and successful experiences in encouraging illegal encroachers to voluntarily leave Central Forestry Reserves and would like to use the model for controversial areas in the future."

NFC is puzzled by the extent to which Oxfam's anecdotal evidence is so at odds with these findings. NFC also regrets Oxfam's decision to publish this highly prejudicial report without having given NFC the opportunity to investigate its claims.

In attacking the NFC Oxfam have chosen a company with an impeccable track record in community investment and development who in their short life have not only created over 2,000 jobs in remote rural Ugandan communities but been responsible for increasing access to health, education, clean water and fuel. Africa needs responsible inward investment."

The Monitor

Forest Peoples Programme is recruiting for 2 DRCongo-related job vacancies

Forest Peoples Programme is recruiting for 2 job vacancies:

1. Project Manager for the project entitled: REDD financing, Human Rights and Economic Development for Sustainable Poverty Reduction of forest communities in the Democratic Republic of Congo.


Click here for full job description and application form

2. Monitoring and Finance Officer based in our offices in Moreton-in-Marsh, UK with some travel to Democratic Republic of Congo.

Click here for full job description and application form

http://www.forestpeoples.org

Guinea: tension between locals and palm oil, rubber company over land

Reports say tension is brewing between peasants from Saoro in the prefecture of Yomou in the forest region of Guinea and the Guinean Palm Oil and Rubber Company (Soguipah ), following the destruction of the farmers’ rice fields.

According to witnesses, Soguipah went into the area in early July with heavy machinery to open roads to the contested land, destroying villagers’ rice fields, coffee and rubber plantations. On July 28, police officials were dispatched by regional authorities to issue a notice of expropriation to the villagers. Clashes broke out and several farmers and community leaders were arrested.

“Since 1987, the state has been trying to rob us of our land to give it to Soguipah. And since we have no where to go we have been fighting this for three decades,” said Bangaly Conde, a spokesman for the villagers. “The government must realise that we will not give away our land, which we inherited from our ancestors.”

Fearing fresh violence, many fled the village and sought refuge in the church. Several were injured in the clashes, the witnesses said. More than 500 people including women, children and the elderly are said to have been displaced following the action by the company, which the locals see as land grabbing.

A correspondent says 115 of them have found refuge at the cathedral in Nzerékoré, the main city in that region of Guinea. Seven people reportedly beaten by security forces are in hospital in Nzérékoré receiving treatment for various injuries.

Lawyers Without Borders and the Equal Rights for All say they are disappointed with the government over the alleged attacks by gendarmes and army troops against the Saoro villagers.

The land conflict started in 2003 following a presidential decree allocating 2,000 hectares of land in Saoro village to the Company.

Guinea’s land law states that an expropriation decree must be implemented within the next three following years when a decree is made.

But according to Foromou Frederic Loua, president of Equal Rights for All in Guinea, this is not the case.

“This decree was made in 2003 and we are 2011… so as it is today, this decree is null and void. With the complicity of the local authorities, the population is being harshly treated.”

For the past two months, the application of this decree has set Guinea’s forestry authorities against the farmers of Saoro who, according to human rights defenders, have gone through violence in the hands of security agents.

According to the NGOs, several farmers have already fled to cities of Yomou and Nzérékoré or in the forest to escape the gendarmes and army troops, after their farms were destroyed by bulldozers.

AFP, West Africa Democracy Radio

Italian investor to quadruple Sierra Leone rubber output

by Silas Gbandia

The Italian Agricultural Co., a closely held producer of rubber in Sierra Leone, plans to quadruple output in five years by planting new trees in a bid to revitalize the industry.

The company’s current output of 250 metric tons a month, from both its own plantations and rubber bought from small-scale farmers, will rise to 1,000 tons, said Cheick Barrie, finance administrator of the company,  in an interview Aug. 15 in the eastern town of Small Bo.

Italian Agricultural has a three-year lease on two state- owned plantations and a 50-year lease on another 10,000-acre (4,045-hectare) plot, he said. The company will plant two million trees over the next four to five years, he said.

The West African nation carved out rubber plantations totaling 53,559 acres in the 1960s to develop the industry, said Thomas Dickson Kallon, forest officer for Kenema District, in the country’s east. Less than 10 percent of the land was cultivated, he said. In 1991, a plan to hand over control of the state-owned rubber farms to the Sierra Leone Rubber Co. was halted by the outbreak of a rebel uprising that led to a devastating 11-year civil war.

Italian Agricultural sends its raw rubber to the Firestone Natural Rubber Co. in neighboring Liberia to be processed, said Barrie. The company plans to build stations in towns in the east to buy rubber from farmers and its own processing plant, he said.

Business Week

Cocoa farmers may boost yields by intercropping

by Bernard Appiah

Growing cocoa with other crops on the same plot boosts the productivity of cocoa farms, compared with growing cocoa alone, a study has found.

The researchers, from the University of Queensland, Australia, say their study is one of the first to quantitatively examine the effects of crop diversity on the efficiency of cocoa farms.

They surveyed more than 300 farmers from three of the six cocoa-growing regions in Ghana - the world's second-largest cocoa producer - and estimated their cocoa output.

"We were able to show statistically that [on average] cocoa farms that have other crops yield more cocoa per hectare than plots with only cocoa," said John Asafu-Adjaye, co-author of the study.

The practice of converting forests into cocoa farms has led many to advocate growing cocoa with other trees - a form of agroforestry - to conserve biodiversity.

But cocoa agroforestry can also benefit farmers by increasing their income, said co-author Adeline Ofori-Bah.

"On average, a ten per cent increase in the production of other crops is associated with a 1.6 per cent decrease in the marginal cost of producing cocoa," the researchers wrote in the journal Ecological Economics last month (15 June).

The study did not look at which species are best to plant alongside cocoa.

...SciDevNet

Senegal farmers fight desertification with trees

by George Fominyen

Dame Diop looks at the green leaves of trees growing on the sandy Sahelian soil of his Senegal village, Khatre Sy, and says...“The trees had disappeared because of many droughts and also because people were cutting them for firewood and for fodder for livestock,” he added. “We felt we would not survive if this desertification continued so we decided to act.”

The people...decided to pool their farmlands together and zone off sections to allow trees – mainly varieties of the African acacia – to regenerate. They used some of the regeneration sites as farmlands where they planted crops – groundnuts, millet and sorghum.

During the rainy season, crops are planted and can get nitrogen from falling leaves as the trees enter dormancy, while the tree’s bare branches don’t block sunlight. The trees also produce seed pods which are used as fodder for livestock.

The result of the initiative is growing hectares of parkland – agro-forests – which some researchers see as vital in providing a barrier against desertification in the semi-arid Sahel region which runs south of the Sahara desert.

full article...Alertnet

More farmers turn to cultivation of moringa in Benin

by Toni Bacala

In the fields of Benin, a green revolution has placed local farmers at the forefront of the battle against malnutrition. With the establishment of Association Béninoise du Moringa (ABM), Beninese farmers have expanded the production and promotion of moringa to nourish the ailing West African nation.

Widely acclaimed as a "miracle tree," moringa is fast-growing and possesses multiple benefits, from nutritional leaves, flowers, and seeds, to drought-resistant roots and bark. Moringa leaves are usually consumed fresh in green salads, or sautéd. In health programs, leaves are dried and ground into powder, then sprinkled on any dish for instant nutritional boost.

It has been traditionally used in South and Central Asia, India, and the Middle East as livestock feed, biofuel, medicine, water purifying agent, and soil fertilizer, among many other uses.

In the mid-1990s, the US Peace Corps initiated moringa promotion in the country in keeping with nutritional campaigns all over West Africa.

Despite such assistance, however, Benin has long lagged behind in the region, as compared to Niger, which has been producing moringa as a cash crop, and Senegal, which integrated moringa into HIV/AIDS treatment in the late 1990s.

"The value of this plant cannot be downplayed as regards its possibility to address some of the Millennium Development Goals as well as to influence the ongoing debates on climate change," said Muriel Glasgow, founder of Moringa Partners, an interactive outfit of moringa growers, scientists, non-government organizations and other enthusiasts from all over the world.

Benin has had its hands full battling against malnutrition. According to UNICEF, one out of every three Beninese children below the age of five has experienced malnutrition. The country's health crisis is aggravated by recent floods that have displaced thousands of residents, devastated farms, and destroyed access to clean, potable water. Foreign agencies have stepped in with food assistance and nutrition programs, but for the people of Benin, a longer-term solution is needed.

In 2008, a pilot project in the town of Goumori drew closer attention to moringa. The first batch of moringa powder produced was sold out in one week, encouraging farmers to share their knowledge so others could grow the plant.

As communities increasingly grasped the nutritional and economic benefits of moringa, volunteers and farmers saw the need for a mechanism to manage the future of moringa in Benin. Thus, ABM was born.

"We envisioned an organization that would promote moringa on a national scale and facilitate a market for moringa thereby taking the responsibility of promoting moringa and creating a market off the farmers themselves," former US Peace Corps volunteer Christoph Herby told MediaGlobal.

Last August, the vision came to fruition at the widely participated launch of ABM.

Moringa industry in Benin has flourished notably as ABM facilitates more farmers growing moringa alongside other crops as an additional source of income, and as an affordable supplement for malnutrition.

Through ABM, efforts of farmers, which were usually confined in their own fields and villages, are stretched out to markets and other moringa producers across the country. "Ultimately the goal is to create nationwide demand for moringa powder, satisfied by a network of well-supervised moringa plantations," said Herby.

ABM sets the production standard to strategically incorporate moringa into nutrition programs. One of its key activities is conducting workshops with farmers, health workers, and students. Since its launch, there has been a spirited demand for orientation on moringa cultivation and processing, informed ABM technical assistant Patrick Starr.

Benin's health agenda has inspired the expansion of moringa networks such as Moringa Partners, which reaches out to growers from Cameroon, Ethiopia, India, Costa Rica, and the Philippines.

"On a larger scale, [the] Peace Corps is increasing its focus on food security," said Herby. "And moringa is being considered a primary component in Peace Corps' food security planning for the West Africa sub-region."

"The world is still learning about moringa," said Glasgow, optimistic that more moringa benefits will be developed as a worldwide demand is set in motion.

While ABM acknowledges that it will take years to see tangible effects of the program, the empowerment of Beninese farmers has resulted in the cultivation of hope, health, and abundance beyond quantifiable terms.

http://allafrica.com

Putting trees on farms fundamental to future agricultural development

Trees growing on farms will be essential to future development. As the number of trees in forests is declining every year, the number of trees on farms is increasing.

Marking the launch of the International Year of Forest by the United Nations Forum on Forests (UNFF9) in New York on 29 January, Dennis Garrity, the Director General of the World Agroforestry Centre, highlighted the importance of mixing trees with agriculture, the practice known as agroforestry.

"Over a billion hectares of agricultural land, almost half of the world's farmland, have more than 10 percent of their area occupied by trees," said Garrity, "and 160 million hectares have more than 50 percent tree cover."

Growing trees on farms can provide farmers with food, income, fodder and medicines, as well as enriching the soil and conserving water. As natural vegetation and forests are cleared for agriculture and other types of development, the benefits that trees provide are best sustained by integrating them into agriculturally productive landscapes.

Garrity said, "Agroforestry is a crucial bridge between forestry and agriculture. Essentially, agroforestry is about the role of working trees in agricultural landscapes, particularly on, but not limited to, small-scale farms."

In many countries, it is now quite clear that the future of forestry is on farms. In countries such as India, Kenya, and many others, the majority of the nation's wood is derived from farm-grown timber.

Practiced by farmers for millennia, agroforestry focuses on the wide range of working trees grown on farms and in rural landscapes. Among these are fertilizer trees for land regeneration, soil health and food security; fruit trees for nutrition; fodder trees that improve smallholder livestock production; timber and fuelwood trees for shelter and energy; medicinal trees to combat disease; and trees that produce gums, resins or latex products.

Combining fertilizer trees with conservation farming techniques is doubling and tripling cereal crop yields in many parts of the African continent. The nitrogen-fixing tree Faidherbia or Acacia albida, is increasing unfertilized maize yields in Malawi, Zambia, Tanzania, Ethiopia, and in numerous other countries. They are now being grown on millions of hectares of crop land throughout Niger, at densities of up to 200 trees per hectare, and show a tripling of yield in the crops growing beneath them. Producing food crops like maize, sorghum, and millets under these agroforests dramatically increases their drought resilience in dry years, because of positive soil moisture regimes, and a better microclimate.

This development is not happening only in Africa. The South Asia Network of Evergreen Agriculture has been launched to advance an evergreen revolution throughout the subcontinent.

Planting trees that provide natural fertilizers on farms with poor soils helps farmers restore fertility and increase yields. Gliricidia bushes fix nitrogen in their roots and act as natural green fertilizer factories, tripling yields of maize on farms in Malawi. The prunings are fed to the animals. The bushes also reduce the risk of crop failure during droughts and prevent waterlogging when it rains too much. The nitrogen-fixing tree Faidherbia increased unfertilized maize yield four times in Zambia. The trees are being grown on over 5 million hectares of crop land in Niger.

Domesticating wild fruit trees in the Cameroon has allowed smallholder farmers to increase their earnings five times. Thousands of farmers in Tanzania are planting Allanblackia trees and earning much-needed income by selling the oil-containing seeds to companies to make margarine.

Trees grown on homestead farms, in woodlots and on communal lands are an important source of wood and other products. In humid-zone African countries, Burundi, Rwanda and Uganda in particular, trees grown in home gardens meet most household needs for fuelwood and timber. In many cash-crop systems, trees are grown for shade and eventually provide wood – an example is Grevillea robusta in tea plantations in Kenya. In the Sudan, Acacia senegal, the source of gum arabic, is largely grown in agroforestry systems.

ICRAF

"Fertilizer tree" triples Malawi, Zambia maize yields

Scientists have managed to triple maize yields on smallholder farms in Zambia and Malawi by simple "evergreen agriculture" techniques. Planting acacia trees among the crops automatically fertilised the fields.
Scientists from the World Agroforestry Centre now call for a scaling-up of the use of so-called "fertilizer trees" in fields throughout Africa to fight climate change and increase food security.

The unique acacia known as a "fertilizer tree" had typically led to "a doubling or tripling of maize yields in smallholder agriculture in Zambia and Malawi," according to evidence presented at a conference in The Hague in early November.

The findings were central to the arguments of agroforestry experts at the conference, who urged decision-makers to spread this technology more widely throughout the African nations most vulnerable to climate change and food shortages, and to think differently about more practical ways to solve the problems that are most pressing to smallholder farmers.

Speaking at conference, Dennis Garrity, Director General of the World Agroforestry Centre (WAC), said that evergreen agriculture - or the integration of fertilizer trees into crop and livestock-holding farms - "is rapidly emerging as an affordable and accessible solution to improving production on Africa's farms."

"Doubling food production by mid-century, particularly in Africa, will require non-conventional approaches, particularly since so many of the continent's soils are depleted, and farmers are faced with a changing climate," Dr Garrity said. "We need to reinvent agriculture in a sustainable and affordable way, so that it can reduce its emissions of greenhouse gases and be adapted to climate change."

In a recent article in the scientific magazine 'Food Security', Mr Garrity and co-authors had highlighted how evergreen agriculture has already provided benefits to several million farmers in Zambia, Malawi, Niger and Burkina Faso.

Fertilizer trees draw nitrogen from the air and transfer it to the soil through their roots and leaf litter, replenishing exhausted soils with rich sources of organic nutrients. The trees bolster nutrient supply, increase food crop yields, and enhance the production of fodder, fuel and timber, according to the article.

These systems also were said to provide additional income to farmers from tree products, while at the same time storing much greater amounts of carbon than other agricultural systems.

For example, farmers in Malawi had increased their maize yields by up to 280 percent when the crop is grown under a canopy of one particular fertilizing tree, Faidherbia albida.

Unlike most other trees, Faidherbia sheds its leaves during the early rainy season and remains dormant during the crop-growing period. This makes it highly compatible with food crops because it does not compete with them for water, nutrients, or light - only the bare branches of the tree's canopy spread overhead while crops of maize, sorghum, or millets grow to maturity below.

The leaves and pods were also found to "provide a crucial source of fodder in the dry season for livestock when nearly all other plants have dried up." The trees may continue to provide these cost-free benefits for up to 70 or 100 years.

In Niger, there are now more than 4.8 million hectares of millet and sorghum being grown in agroforests that have up to 160 Faidherbia trees on each hectare.

According to the World Agroforestry Centre, a broad alliance is now emerging of African governments, research institutions, and international and local development partners committed to expanding evergreen agriculture and agroforestry.

"We are already working with 18 countries across the African continent to develop national plans for the accelerated implementation of evergreen agriculture," Dr Garrity explained.

The next step was to further refine and adapt the technologies to a wider range of smallholder farming systems in diverse agricultural environments, so that millions more farmers can benefit now and for generations to come from such sustainable solutions to their food production challenges.

"Evergreen agriculture allows us to glimpse a future of more environmentally-sound farming where much of our annual food crop production occurs under a full canopy of trees," concludes Mr Garrity.

Afrol News

Unique acacia tree could play vital role in African agriculture

by Jeremy Hance

Scientists have discovered that an acacia tree, long used by farmers in parts of Africa, could dramatically raise food yields in Africa. The acacia tree Faidherbia albida, also known as Mgunga in Swahili, possesses the unique ability to provide much-needed nitrogen to soil.

The tree becomes dormant in early rainy season, shedding its nitrogen-rich leaves onto the ground, just in time for farmers' seeds to soak up their nitrogen. Also, since the tree loses its leaves at the time when farmers are planting—and grows them back after harvest in the dry season—it also does not compete with crops for sunlight.

"Knowledge of this tree is farmer-driven," Dennis Garrity, Director General of the World Agroforestry Centre, or ICRAF, one of 15 centers supported by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR). "We are now combining the scientific knowledge base with the farmer knowledge base. There is sufficient research on both sides to warrant dramatically scaling-up the planting of this tree on farms across Africa through extension programs. The risks to farmers are low; it requires very little labor, and delivers many benefits."

Unlike most regions in the world, agricultural yields in Africa have not been increasing. yet the number of people requiring food in Africa continues to grow, leading to an on-going food crisis in many parts of the continent.

One of the reasons for low yields has been a lack of nitrogen in the soil. Sub-Saharan Africa uses significantly less fertilizer than other regions, applying only 10 percent on average of what the rest of the world applies and 2 percent of what China applies. Fertilizer is too expensive for many farmers in Africa, and with fertilizer prices on the rise, purchasing fertilizer has become even more daunting for the average African farmer.

Some scientists see increasing synthetic fertilizers in Africa as the key to increasing years—with suggestions like subsidizing fertilizer—others worry that synthetic fertilizer could in the long run further degrade already sensitive land. The Mgunga tree may be a more cost-effective and environmentally friendly way of increasing stalled yields.

Scientists began researching the tree over 60 years after noticing farmers leaving it stand in sorghum and millet fields. A study in Malawi found that maize yields jumped 280 percent when the crop was planted under the Mgunga tree canopy rather than outside it. Unpublished research in Zambia found an increase from an average 1.3 tons of maize per hectare outside of the trees' range to 4.1 tons of maize per hectare when planted near the tree. None of the maize had been fertilized.

Some nations have started to react to these findings. The Departments of Agriculture in both Zambia and Malawi are hoping to double maize production by requesting farmers to plant one hundred Mgunga trees on every hectare of maize crops.

The research on the Mgunga was presented made at the 2nd World Congress of Agroforestry in Nairobi, Kenya hosted by ICRAF.

"Growing the right tree in the right place on farms in sub-Saharan Africa—and worldwide— has the potential to slow climate change, feed more people, and protect the environment," Garrity added. "This tree, as a source of free, organic nitrogen, is an example of that. There are many other examples of solutions to African farming that exist here already."

Mongabay

Bacterial wilt destroys pine trees in Uganda

by Lominda Afedraru

The lucrative tree farming industry is being threatened by a deadly bacterial wilt that has been discovered by Ugandan scientists. The wilt is mainly affecting pine trees - the species that tree farmers most commonly investing in.

Dr Grace Nakabonge from the department of Forest Biology and Ecosystems Management, Faculty of Forestry and Nature Conservation, Makerere University, in an open forum held in Kampala on the theme ‘Biotechnology Research and development in the forest sector’, explained that they were alerted about the problem by farmers from Nakasongola last year.

Scientists are now carrying out a country-wide survey on tree planting and forest conservation to determine the extent of the problem. However, while carrying out this survey, the team discovered that the pine tree species were not only withering in Nakasongola pine plantations, but in pine farms throughout the country.

Pine is grown in the districts of Kabale, Lira, and Busoga region among others. Farmers in Uganda took to pine farming because the trees do not take long to grow, and they have a high demand in the wood industry because they produce good timber.

Dr Nakabonge said the wilt attacks the roots of the trees in the soil and eventually causes them to dry. She said Uganda is not the first country to experience such bacterial wilt attacks on the pine species. South Africa, which is the biggest pine growing country, is facing the same problem.
Scientists in the forestry department at Makerere have sent samples of the infected pine trees to a laboratory at Pretoria University, South Africa, to establish the identity of the deadly bacteria wilt which is destroying these trees.

“Farmers who plant the pine tree on their farms have never experienced this type of bacterial wilt because this is the first incidence of it, but we shall find a method for its eradication. However, in my opinino, the farmers should not give up in their planting projects for this tree species because, with good farm management the trees can always survive,” Nakabonge said.

She said that due to the effect of the climate change, various diseases, pests and other bacterial wilts have emerged and are attacking tree species including the natural trees in our forests.
However, she said that there is need for farmers to adapt to using some hybrid tree species, since the world forest-cover is declining very fast due to demand for the product for energy purposes.

A farmer specializing in growing pine in Ogengo Village, Lira district, Ms Janet Akibua, is one of those whose trees were attacked by the wilt. However, she mistakenly attributed it to the dry weather despite having planted them during rainy season.

According to her, she planted about 1,500 trees last year in October, but after one month many of them began dying, leaving less than 1,000 surviving now. A survey carried out by forest conservation scientists indicates that most Ugandans depend on biomas as a source of energy. They are calling upon the nation’s farmers to establish forest plantations in highly productive tree species such as eucalyptus and pulp which are used in developed countries to manufacture paper.

The Natural Agricultural Forest Research Resources Institute (NAFORI) in Kifu, Mukono, is currently multiplying seedlings of hybrid eucalyptus imported from South Africa and selling them to farmers.

The Commissioner of Forest Sector Support, Ministry of Water and Environment, Ms Rachel Musoke, called upon government to invest more money in research to train more personnel in tree breeding so that quick solutions can be worked out to safeguard the tree species from the emerging wilts. She said that deforestation occurs because the forestry sector is underfunded and few people are sensitized about the dangers of cutting trees and not replacing them.

“In Uganda, 15% of the forest is under National Forest Authority, 15% is under Uganda Wildlife Authority, 69% is allocated to the District Forest Services and 1% to the communities, but no fund is allocated for the latter two,” she said. “This is why 50,000 hectares of forest estate are lost every year.”

The Monitor

Will the new trade in baobab fruit benefit or exploit Africa?

by Chido Makunike
The EU has approved baobab extract as an ingredient in various food products. This apparently follows years of lobbying by PhytoTrade Africa, described in press reports as “the southern Africa natural products trade association that represents companies wishing to export their dried baobab fruit.”
This means that for the first time the fruit of this iconic tree, Adamsonia digitata, will now be able to earn hard currency for African communities who have up to now only harvested it for various traditional, local uses. The baobab extract, said to be unusually high in Vitamin C content, will be used in specialty foods like cereal bars.
There are many things about this developing export niche that will only become clear with time. I don’t think anyone yet knows what the potential size of this new export niche will be although the phrase “billion dollar industry” has been thrown about.

The baobab tree’s life cycle can be hundreds of years. It is obviously not cultivated, so the extract falls in the realm of naturally-growing, simply harvested “agro-forestry” products. Countries will have to take steps to ensure that the new interest in baobab will not cause over-exploitation or misuse; to make sure that harvesting is done in a sustainable way.
But being a non-cultivated forest product, who “owns” the baobab fruit? Can anybody just take a truck into the forest, collect the fruit and export it? Obviously the sudden dramatic change in the economic importance of the baobab will open up many questions that will need regulation.
Despite the excitement about the new opportunities this development presents for communities in areas with lots of baobab trees, past experience shows that in the whole baobab “value chain” that will now develop, Africa might benefit the least. This is due to the many reasons that contribute to Africa not gaining maximally from its natural resources.

Africa mainly exports raw products, or those that have only undergone primary processing. Most of the profit margin in the baobab products chain will likely go to traders and processors abroad, with very little of the cost of the final product remaining in Africa. Yet baobab is a dry, not-easily perishable, easy to process fruit. It would not be difficult to have the “smoothies” and cereal bars that are being contemplated for its use made in Africa and exported as finished product, producing many downstream benefits and keeping more of the wealth to be generated within the continent.
While there is increasing talk in Africa about the need for value addition of its products, Europe for obvious reasons generally prefers to import raw or minimally processed products.
Still, whatever issues remain to be resolved before baobab fruit becomes a fully fledged export sub-sector for Africa, there is no doubt that this is an exciting development.

African Agriculture

Eucalyptus wood lots in Kenya not as lucrative as hoped

Expectations were high as Peter Wamiti, 45, led his workers in planting eucalyptus trees on his newly acquired five-acre farm in Kenya's Kajiado District. He hoped the trees would soon turn him into a millionaire.

He expected the Kenya Power and Lighting Company to buy his trees upon maturity. He had had been informed that the power company was importing the logs due to a shortage in the country.

That was two years ago. Today Wamiti’s optimism has waned after his precious trees failed to register quick growth as he had anticipated. The trees appeared weak and had no semblance of the giant logs that support power lines.

His neighbours, on the other hand, are accusing his trees of drying up their boreholes, saying they suck a lot of underground water. In short, Mr Wamiti has no peace of mind today and he is wondering if the investment was worth it.

He is not alone in this dilemma. Many other enterprising Kenyans, who had heard about the fast-maturing eucalyptus camaldulensis species, had moved with enthusiasm to make money in the reportedly lucrative tree farming. Today, plantations of the trees dot parts of Isinya, Ngong’, Namanga and the Central divisions.

Most of these people were lured by stories of how the tree would mature in seven years to produce electricity poles and they plunged into eucalyptus farming without consulting experts. Had they gone for advice from the forest department, they would have been told that arid parts of the district, which receive less than 900mm of rainfall annually, cannot support the growth of the trees to produce electricity poles. They would also have been informed of other threats, among them the blue gum chalcid (BGC), a pest which attacks mostly seedlings and trees under five years old.

A forest officer in the district, Mr Jackson Kimeu, says that apart from inadequate rainfall, some parts of the district have acidic soils and are highly infested with termites, a situation which does not augur well for the eucalyptus plantations. For parts of Isinya Division, Kimeu says, the problem is mainly shallow soils and the trees usually encounter rock after a depth of only two feet and they dry up.

He says that the few plantations that are doing well are in parts of Isinya, Ngong’ and Namanga divisions where there are deep soils. “But even in these areas, it is still not possible to produce electricity poles as the type of eucalyptus grown is the dry land species, which is not capable of producing poles of that size.”

It is possible that the electricity poles story was part of marketing information by the forestry department for a high potential species known as eucalyptus grandis and not the dry land eucalyptus camaldulensis.

In a period of five years since they planted the trees, many farmers have realised all they are likely to produce are rafters usually used by construction workers to support buildings under construction.

Eucalyptus farming involves a huge investment without which the activity cannot be profitable. A seedling of the eucalyptus camaldulensise seedling, for example, costs Sh15 (US25 cents) and after replanting, requires watering until its roots are long enough to access underground water.

“Most of those with big eucalyptus plantations have drilled boreholes on their land, which they use to irrigate their trees”, the forest officer said. “Their trees are noticeably healthier and bigger than those which are not watered.”

None can attest to the eucalyptus trees water requirements better than Mr Titus Chemase, the production manager at the Kaputiei farm in Isinya, which is probably the biggest eucalyptus plantation in the district. Most of the trees at the farm are unhealthy but those near a horticultural greenhouse are big and healthy.

Coincidentally, the horticultural plants, mainly tomatoes, which are at the edge of the green house and are closest to the eucalyptus trees, are unhealthy. “We have come to a conclusion that these trees are obtaining nutrients and water meant for the plants in the green house,” Mr Chemase said. He, however, could not confirm if the recharge of the farm’s borehole has been affected by the eucalyptus plantation as no research into this has been done.

It is evident that the trees require a lot of water to thrive but the forest officer says they are not likely to have dried up any borehole. However, fears expressed by boreholes owners in areas adjacent to eucalyptus plantations that they could be affecting water yields and recharge rate, have not fallen on deaf ears.

The Water Resources Management Authority (WRMA) in the district has selected some 15 boreholes located near eucalyptus plantations for monitoring, an exercise aimed at establishing if the trees were affecting the boreholes. A hydrologist with WRMA, Mr Ngila Munyao, says the findings would determine the next course of action.

Also interested in the issue is the National Environment Management Authority (NEMA), which has already declared that any person wishing to venture into eucalyptus farming must now undertake an environmental impact assessment (EIA).

Nema representative in the district, Mr. Wilson Maritim, says that if the dry land eucalyptus is found to have a high water extractive capacity, establishment of more plantations will not be approved.

The forest department has no quarrels with restrictions from WRMA or Nema, but Mr. Kimeu is positive that the findings will only serve to clear the name of the eucalyptus species. He is of the opinion that lowering of the water table in most parts of the district is the result of accumulative impact of de-forestation.

The forest officer is of the opinion that land in low potential areas gained more in value when the dryland eucalyptus is planted on it. The trees, he said, use their roots to break underground rocks and this could eventually pave the way for more profitable forms of land use.

“While farmers in these areas may not produce trees which are big enough for power line posts, they will still fetch them money when sold for other uses such as wood fuel, construction and even medicinal application”, Kimeu says.

Daily Nation