Scribbles

In the north of Burkina Faso, about one hour’s drive from Ouahigouya, the trees change into low scrubby bushes, the grass turns yellow, and as we drive on, it eventually disappears. The dirt track dissolves into a rocky river bedding, climbs up a steep ridge and levels on a plateau. We stop for second, and take in the scenery.

The landscape is barren. The soil is a dark brown crusted gravel, often bereaved of any vegetation. Houses are grouped together, with the mosques and low mud grain stores sticking out. Here and there a group of kids walks to the school at the edge of the village. A large troop of cows, herded by two nomads, kicks up a cloud of dust.

Ninigui feels like a border town. A village on the edge of the desert and on the edge of survival.

Ganame Adama, who heads NAAM, the local farmers’ union, takes us to his field where he just harvested his millet crop. “Look around you”, he says, “All of this used to be forest. At the time of my father’s father, they hunted wild animals here. They grew a crop without using any fertilizer. They had crops every year without much effort.”

As the forest was cut for firewood, gradually the rains carried away the thin top soil. To make matters worse, the rainy season shifted: it started later, lasted shorter, and came in repeated violent squalls, often causing flooding as the barren ground was no longer able to absorb the rain.

“Rains just gushed over the ground”, Adama explains, “In the hills, it dug out ravines, emptying into the flats. The water would just carry away whatever we had sown. It was no use to apply fertilizer neither. Each time it rained, everything was carried away.”

The men migrated to the neighbouring countries, looking for work. “In the village, you could only find women, babies and old people”, whispers Helene Nana, one of the leading women in the village. “People sometimes talk about misery and poverty, but we, we lived through it. We know what hunger means. We could hardly produce anything anymore on our fields. Children died because of malnutrition. We were so poor we had no money to pay for their funeral. THAT is poverty, THAT is what we lived through.”

Helene turns away, and looks over the horizon. “We had to change. The weather had changed, and we had to change with it. Once we realized that, now twenty years ago, things turned around for us.”

“There were very few of us left in the village”, explains Ganame Ousseni, who keeps cattle. He scrapes his foot over the crusted soil as if to emphasize how hard things were. “We organised ourselves into a farmers’ union and applied for funds to make a small dam. Nobody approved the credit. Nobody believed in a future here. So we rolled up our sleeves and built a mud dam ourselves. The whole village helped. The first year, the dam turned the lowlands into a huge water hole. Even though eventually the mud gave away and the dam broke, we had proven a point: the water would stay. So the next year, we got the credit, and build a proper dam.”

“And that changed everything. The dam could hold the water through almost the whole dry season. The cattle could come and drink from it, and we started to grow vegetables around it, irrigating the crops with water from the dam. Yes, from there on, it only got better. It gave people hope. The war was not won, but we surely had won a battle”, Helene smiles, “we had proven to ourselves we could fight back against the odds, against the weather, the desertification, the erosion, and against poverty. That insight changed everything”.

Original article published on the CCAFS blog

Anyone doubting the effect of climate change, and how farmers can adapt continuously to changing weather patterns, should talk to Emily Marigu Ireri.

We met Emily, near Meru, eastern Kenya, where she farms a five acres plot, 1,500 meters high on the steep slopes of Mount Kenya.

She describes how, in recent years, the rains are more erratic. At the beginning of the rainy season, often it would only rain for a few days, and then stop, sometimes for weeks. “Often seeds would start to sprout during those first rains, but then they would dry up”, Emily explains. She takes us to the bottom of the valley just below her fields. “By this time of the year, this small stream would normally be a river, but now, it hardly irrigates the fields around it. A few miles from here, the river is dead, water is just absorbed by the soil.”

“But it is not only the erratic rains that makes the life of farmers difficult“, Emily explains. “Here, so close to Mount Kenya, we also used to get misty drizzle in May and June. From the time of my father’s fathers, we used that moisture for a crop in the middle of the year. Now that drizzle does not come anymore. I don’t know why, but nowadays, we can only get one harvest a year, in the rainy season. Now is the time for the rain to come.”

As we walk up the hill again, Emily stops and grabs a handful of dry soil “A few drops we had, some days ago, and it stopped again. Often when it starts again, the rains are very short, but come in heavy downpours. It washes away the fertilizer, the manure and erodes my top soil. Unless if I stop this erosion, soon I would be left with unfertile land.” She stops for a moment, as she brushes over the top of the tea bushes: “That is true for most of these changes the weather brings: Unless if I change too, I will no longer be able to provide for my family”.

Without using the big words, Emily is adapting to climate change. She is eager to share her experiences to help other farmers. That is why she wanted to talk to us: “Show what we have learned here”, Emily smiles, “we have found new ways. Ways others can use too!”. While a bit timid at the beginning, her enthusiasm was clear.

Diversification of crops

“Maize and beans were mainly what we used to grow. Combined with a field of coffee and tea to sell, and we were ok. But now, neither maize nor beans do well anymore. Since the weather changed, there is also a pest that affects our maize crop. I still plant some, but far less than before”.

“Root crops that is what people should grow”, she says with a finger in the air, “Cassava, potatoes and sweet potatoes. They do much better, as they are more tolerant to spells of drought… Look at my shamba, here!“  She points out the several varieties of sweet potatoes, some that grow faster than others, from two to six months. This way they plant over a longer period, but can also harvest longer. The different varieties need water at different times, so they spread their dependency on the rains to come at a specific time. If one variety fails, they can also fall back onto another.

One variety of cassava that grows over a duration of six month, seems to does very well now. To prove her point, she digs out the roots of one cassava. She shows me huge tubers one foot long, the biggest cassava root I have ever seen.

Mulching

As we walk up the hill, in between the different crops, she makes a sign “Come here,” she says, and shows us a field which is covered with dead leaves. “A dead crop?” I ask, but she laughs and shakes her head.. “We use the leaves, leftover from other crops, to cover the potato plants. In English they call it “mulching”. The dead leaves help the soil retain moisture, reduce erosion, provide nutrients, and suppress weed growth and stimulate seed germination. She lifts some of the dead leaves to show tiny shoots of sweet potato.

Erosion

With the rains now coming in more violent squalls, Emily protects her soil more than ever before. Mulching is one way, but she also keeps the tea bushes at the bottom of her field. She shows me how the density of the stems keeps the soil from running down into the river. “It is also a way to keep the manure from running off”, Emily smiles, “but I have learned that bananas like the strong rains, so I planted more green bananas for baking and yellow bananas to sell on the market”.

Irrigation

When asked “how about irrigation?” she laughs. “Not much water left in the river,” she says, “It takes a lot of investment for piping and pumps to get it up the hill to her fields. But even then, I would drain the river, and those people downstream would not have any anymore”.

Community farming

“Now also, we organise us in groups”, Emily explains. “We rent a piece of community land, and work together with other farmers. This is important, as while we tend the field, we talk of the crops, and we exchange ways to grow other crops. Different people find different solutions, so we help each other. They tell me of solutions they have found, and I share my experiences. That is how we survive”.

The Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security programme (CCAFS) is learning how farmers are adapting to climate change in different parts of the world, in order to enhance research on managing immediate climate risks, and on longer-term adaptation to progressive climate change.

Original article, published on the CCAFS blog.

My first trip to Africa, goes back to 1994: Angola in the midst of the civil war. I “left” the continent end 1999, moving from Uganda to Kosovo.

Through my five years in Africa, I travelled extensively throughout. I was a first-hand witness of the the mobile phone networks rolling out in different countries. From the old AMPR system and 2 kg mobile phone/walkie talkie bricks in Congo (then Zaire), to the new generation MTN-types using the latest technology, huge bandwidths, and connectivity of “a certain reliability”.

Still by the time I left, end 1999, mobile phone connectivity was still pretty much limited to the capital cities. Even though, in just a few years, GSM had completely taken over the old ‘copper’ landline market in African cities, it seemed there was quite a hurdle to get the connectivity “upcountry”.

Not only was the support infrastructure – electricity, security – often lacking to spread mobile phone towers in remote areas, but it seemed like the companies doubted if there was a real market…

That was back then, in 1999.

Since then, I have always been very reluctant to join the highly enthusiastic crowd propagating mobile phone technology as one of “the” key means for rural farmers to be “informed”. “Informed” about the weather forecast, seed fertilizer and crop prices, and agricultural support.

I still remember saying “those farmers hardly having ends meet, without electricity in their homestead, often illiterate, ain’t gonna use mobile phones”…

And then, last week, during my first trip to Africa in 12 years, we are in Karurumu village in Central Kenya.
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Karumu is about an hour’s drive from the nearest provincial town. In other words: Karumu is, euh… remote.

We are sitting in the shade of a mango tree, on the yard of Celeste’s farm. Celeste is 88 years old. He fought the English colonizers “way back when”. He has 10 kids. He says he can’t remember exactly how many grand children and grand-grand children he has.

Celeste speaks slowly and stresses every word. We are listening to his story of how he built up his farm from nothing to the 30 acres it is now. How he was blessed with his children. Some who lived on his farm. He points out a house, a few meters further up. The house is locked up. It belonged to his son and his daughter-in-law, a doctor. Both passed away. Celeste and his wife Julia are now taking care of their grand children.

We are pulled into the story of Celeste and Julia, a story which is so common in Africa: children being raised by their grand parents. A generation being wiped away. Bart, our camera-man, keeps the focus on the sound and the ever changing intensity of the sun. Jan, the radio-reporter, is taking mental notes on what he would like to discuss further with Celeste. I am sitting on a stool, with Julia, Celeste’s grand-grand child on my lap. Julia is fascinated by the sound an elastic band makes when you pull it like a guitar string.
In short, we are all pulled into the story, into the moment.

And then, all of a sudden, a mobile phone rings. Celeste, 88 years old, farmer from Karurumo village in Kenya, stands up, says “Excuse me”, reaches into his pocket, pushes a button and starts talking into a Nokia.

It is one of his five trucks. It is held up loading fertilizer a couple of farms further up.
Celeste calls the driver of his other truck, informs him of the delay and orders him to pick up a load of firewood from another farmer.
As he puts the phone back in his pocket, Celeste, 88 years old, farmer from Karurumo village in Kenya, sits down, and continues his story about the price of fruit tree pesticides and the market price for a bag of maize. As if it all was the most normal thing in the world.

The picture of Celeste, answering the phone, stays with me. The sur-reality of a mobile phone ringing in the African bush.

Have I really missed a lot during my 12 years absence in Africa? Driving around for five days in Kenya, I think not. The overloaded trucks are still the same. The accidents are just as grave. People still die needlessly of diseases we find common in “The West”. Nothing changed except one thing: Mobile phones are now everywhere. Farmers call each other with information, with questions, they are more informed, and stay ‘connected’ to each other.

I will be curious to see if I find the same giant leap into rural connectivity when travelling through Mali, Ghana, Niger, Burkina and Senegal in November.

One thing is for sure: I will not make fun anymore of those enthusiasts saying the mobile phone connectivity makes a big difference for rural farmers!

Picture interview team courtesy Willemijn Drok

Why I am so touched with the recent violence in DRC (Congo)? I worked in East Congo, in Goma to be precise, early 1995 right after the Rwanda genocide. I wrote the short story “Goma, The Scent of Africa” in The Road’s eBook about my experiences there.

Later on, I worked in the regional office in Kampala, Uganda and was actively involved in the relief operations in East Congo after the -then- rebels headed by Kabila, headed from Uvira northwards, pushing all the refugees out of the camps and dispersing them into the jungle. That was 1996-1997.

The picture above is from that time, in Kisangani. But it could have been taken yesterday. The violence is the same. The human suffering is the same.

That is why I care about Congo.

Update: (10 minutes after I posted the above)
This press article just came in: Aid convoy finds east Congo refugee camps empty. This is exactly what happened in 1996-’97. I am so pissed off. Once again, the international community saw this coming, and stood by. Watching.

More than a century after the last “scramble for Africa”, when European powers fought to colonise the continent, there is a new stampede into one of the world’s biggest areas of uncultivated terrain.

Last year, by one estimate, the government of Mozambique received bids from foreign investors to buy 110,000 square kilometres of land, more than an eighth of the entire country.

In neighbouring Tanzania, a Swedish company, is bidding for 50,000 hectares on the banks of a lake in the Rufiji province. And that is just one example.

Why? A rush from European companies to grow biofuel.(Full)

It begs to think if agrable land can not be used for better purposes. Using the same two examples: Tanzania has more than 40 percent of the population in chronic food-deficit regions where irregular rainfall causes recurring food shortages. Mozambique has 660,000 vulnerable people in need food assistance, and suffers from yearly flooding displacing hundreds of thousands of people.

More about biofuel on The Road.

Source: International Aid Workers Today
Picture courtesy Robert Maas/WFP