November 2008

Fighting Hunger One Tree at a Time in West Africa

By Steven J. Moss

For almost two decades the Sweden-based nonprofit Eden Foundation has been working with hundreds of farmers in one of Niger’s most arid zones to nurture plant – and human – life.  According to Josef Garvi, the Foundation’s coordinator, nature has abundant answers to Niger’s perennial food insecurity problems, but “people are not looking close enough. They look for quick answers, handouts from international aid agencies, big expensive hard-to-maintain irrigation projects, or programs that help politicians look good, but do little to help farmers.”

With a $100,000 annual budget, the 13-person team is based in Zinger, roughly 900 kilometers east of the capital Niamey.  For more than 17-years the team has traveled a few times a week to its testing station more than 100 kilometers away to check on 68 plots of plants, divided by varieties, and years planted.

Eden tests its seeds by planting them in a 20-hectare former millet field, which used to be a wasteland.  “My father found the most undesirable piece of land with the theory that if seeds can take root here, they can be planted anywhere,” said Garvi.  He dismisses plant nurseries that set up carefully-controlled water and light conditions that are impossible to replicate in the desert. “Our testing station is arid; we are working in one of the toughest arid zones in all of Niger. Rather than making farmers recreate nursery conditions, we found a ‘lab’ that most closely resembled farmers’ planting conditions.”  Garvi walks along rows of plants while his wife and three staff enter the plants’ heights and growth information into handheld computers.

The project pays 10 seed collectors to comb the desert country year-round looking for possible plants that can feed farmers.  Garvi’s wife, Renate, who trained as a tropical botanist, also gets seeds from abroad and puts both sets of seeds through what can turn into years of tests. “Once they pass our criteria of viability and produce fruit, and we are convinced they can hold up in Niger’s arid conditions, we distribute to farmers.” said Renate Garvi.

Since 1991, only 19 out of more than 100 seed varieties – none from outside Niger – have met the three criteria:  they can germinate, survive and bear fruit. Another 44 may soon graduate to distribution stage.  To date Eden has distributed free seed packets to about 1,300 farmer households.  The packets carry enough seeds to produce one tree, plus a measuring stick to help farmers distance their plantings. No fertilizer or water is needed. Each packet has picture icons instead of written instructions for the mostly-illiterate farmers.

A few kilometers from the testing station, farmer Mala Abdou says he has grown 600 trees since he started getting free seeds from Eden Foundation 17 years ago. “People used to say we could not plant trees,” said the farmer. “It was something only God could do. But we learned that man can plant trees also. I had never thought about growing trees before, concerned they would attract birds that could eat my millet.”

Other tree-planting programs in Niger, like World Vision’s tree regeneration project, have reported that many Nigeriens think of trees as weeds, calling them “firewood” in the local Hausa language.   But tree-growing convert Abdou points out a a border of trees he built around a school to protect it from desert winds. “These trees also protect my millet. Before the winds would blow away the millet seeds,” said Abdou. Rows of trees now tower over the millet, which Abdou sells. But Abdou keeps the sweet fruits he calls danya in Hausa, and other leafy protein-rich vegetables that his trees bear.

With its sacred origins, and rumored medicinal value, farmers also plant maerua crassifolia, a plant that yields protein-rich edible leaves that are used in sauces.  But the Eden team is reticent, almost tight-lipped, about what goes into the seed packets given to farmers, even shielding them from being photographed.  According to Garvi other groups have incorrectly replicated Eden Foundation’s method, and have wrongly criticized the method. “We are willing to share, but people need to do it correctly. This takes time. It is not something that will happen in one or two years.”

According to the World Food Program almost 40 percent of Niger’s population suffers from chronic malnutrition.  Periodic droughts since the 1970’s have wilted harvests, killed livestock, and scorched the already-caked earth.  But Garvi says plants can adapt, pointing to Israel as an example of how vegetation can grow in extreme desert conditions.  When asked why Niger is still mostly barren of trees, Garvi looks out at the sparse tree-dotted horizon and replied, “People are blinded by what they think they know. There is un-captured potential and abundance here. But you have to really look for it, and then work for it.”

This article is based on the United Nation’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs humanitarian news and analysis service.

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