Key information on land degradation from seven African countries

Land is essential to our lives: we grow food on it and depend on it for economic growth and development. In sub-Saharan Africa, approximately 83% of people depend directly on the land for their survival.

However, approximately two-thirds of the continent’s productive land is degraded, it has lost its productive capacity, to some extent. This is driven by years of overgrazing, inappropriate agricultural practices, extreme weather events, and the conversion of forest land to agricultural land. The future does not look promising either, as Africa is the only continent where deforestation and the conversion of forests to agricultural land are on the rise.

Reversing and preventing land degradation is essential if we want ecosystems to continue functioning; for example, providing food, fresh water, and regulating the weather, natural disasters, and pests.

Fortunately, there is considerable global commitment to reverse and stop further land degradation. The Bonn Challenge, for example, is a global effort to restore 350 million hectares of degraded land by 2030. There are also several important regional initiatives, such as the Africa Forest Landscape Restoration Initiative (AFR100), which aims to restore 100 million hectares 2030.

Greening Africa is another effort that my colleagues and I have been working on. Funded by the European Union and led by World Agroforestry together with five non-governmental organizations (NGOs), the program works directly with 500,000 households to restore one million hectares of agricultural land. The program takes place in Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Mali, Niger, Rwanda, Senegal, and Somalia.

In 2018, we conducted a baseline survey in seven of the eight participating countries, which was just released.

We found high levels of land degradation at the program sites in all seven countries. We also found that farm incomes were generally low, although there were trees on most of the farms and most of the farmers had already engaged in greening activities.

These findings will allow us to assess how the Regreening Africa program will affect people and the environment and will generate evidence on how land restoration efforts can be scaled up, a key objective of this initiative.

Base levels of degradation

Regreening Africa works by supporting farm households to plant appropriate tree species on their farms and facilitate their natural regeneration. Farmers are linked to the value chains of tree products as an incentive.

In addition, the project promotes other land restoration practices, such as intercropping, reduced tillage, soil erosion control structures, and water harvesting.

Our data collection focused on levels of exposure to agroforestry training, adoption of greening practices, indicators of land degradation such as soil erosion, soil organic carbon and plant cover, and income. agricultural.

Using satellite images and scientific models, we detect high levels of land degradation. The prevalence of soil erosion, a key indicator of land degradation, was found to be high in all seven countries, but higher in Niger, where more than 75% of the fields were heavily degraded. The greatest variation in soil erosion was found in Kenya, where about half of the fields had an erosion prevalence above or below 50%.

Trees on the farm

In all seven countries, 94% of households reported the presence of at least one tree on their farm or home. The estimated average per hectare was 150.

This average value masks the huge variation in the number and composition of species. For example, households in East Africa averaged 195 trees per hectare on relatively small plots. In contrast, there were an average of 12 trees per hectare on the largest farms in the Sahel sites.

We are also tracking the ratio of native and exotic species to ensure that the balance of the ecosystem is not undermined. In general, households tended to have more native tree species on their farms compared to exotic species. This trend applied to all countries except Rwanda.

Greening action

What is encouraging is that more than half of the surveyed households (59%) took action to increase tree scale on their farms in the year prior to the interview. This action varied among the seven countries and within them.

Actions to address degradation were found to be highest among Kenyan households, followed by Ethiopian households. The most popular action taken was pruning existing trees on the farm (36% of households), followed by tree planting (20% of households).

The survey also captured data on exposure to greening-related training in the 12 months prior to the survey. This was found to be low by 15% overall (11% women and 18% men), but with a statistically significant variation between countries.

Agricultural income

One of the central hypotheses of Greening Africa is that farmers are more likely to invest in land restoration, including the establishment of trees, if they can clearly see the potential economic benefits of doing so. This is expected to be through, for example, the future promise of selling tree-related products such as fruits, timber and honey, or through increased crop productivity, as a result of restoring degraded soils.

Consequently, the baseline survey captured data on the baseline levels of both total farm income and specific income from tree products. Because trees take time to establish themselves, such income streams were modeled over 10-year time horizons.

The projections without a project (“business as usual”) for total farm income (income from both crops and tree products) were found to be generally low but with considerable variations between countries and households. For example, the average per capita projections for year 1 ranged from US $ 690 for Niger to US $ 3,150 for Mali.

Projected 10-year per capita yields for tree products were found to be highest for Rwanda with an average of US $ 4,858, followed by Kenya (US $ 1,625 on average) and Mali (US $ 1,448 on average). .US. On average). In fact, Rwanda was the only country where tree products accounted for a significant part of projected agricultural returns, given historically high levels of investment in fruit tree production. Thus, there is significant scope to enhance the economic contribution of trees to the agricultural systems that Regreening Africa is targeting.

Transcendence

A general conclusion that follows the baseline survey is that there is great variation among and within the seven countries. There is no one size fits all. Thus, the reverberation of Africa must ensure that restoration practices are carefully adapted to the local context. It’s also important to meet your restoration and income-generating goals simultaneously.

The Africa reverb is now roughly halfway through the implementation of the activity. Much progress has been made, and field teams have adjusted their operations to the new reality of COVID-19. The program’s final survey will (hopefully) take place in a post-pandemic world and with strong evidence that it is possible to produce the food people need without undermining the health of the earth.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.