Talensi Farmer Managed Natural Regeneration Project, Ghana

The Talensi Farmer-Managed Natural Regeneration (FMNR) Project has been instrumental in securing the livelihoods of subsistence farming households in the semi-arid north of Ghana. Over recent decades, people in this zone have been experiencing increasingly erratic rainfall, declining forest cover and an associated loss of indigenous biodiversity and soil fertility. The region has also experienced high population growth that has reduced the size of household land.

The Talensi FMNR Project was a three-year collaboration between World Vision Australia and World Vision Ghana aiming to rebuild household resilience among vulnerable communities in Talensi District in the Upper East Region of Ghana . The project focussed on nine communities in Talensi containing a population of approximately 12,000 people in 1,472 households. To reverse deterioration of soil fertility and the natural resource base, the project focussed on restoring multipurpose indigenous trees to farmland and communitymanaged forests. It did this by promoting adoption of FMNR and complementary sustainable agriculture techniques.

Key achievements by the end of the project

• 574 households (37 percent of all households) adopted the FMNR approach

• 157 households adopted fuel-efficient stoves (90 were distributed by the project and the remainder were spontaneous adoptions)

• All nine communities established natural resource management regulations

• 94 percent of FMNR adopters reported an increase in soil fertility (against 26 percent among the comparison group),

• 66 percent of FMNR adopters reported improvement in soil erosion (against 17 percent in the comparison group),

• 46 percent observed that the FMNR practices have generated more wild fruits and food (fruits, nuts, rabbits and partridges),