FMNR stimulates soils’ fertility

 Louka, 33, father of 2 children, is a hard worker farmer and committed to work together with people in his community of Marakala, in Nonsombougou ADP. According to Louka, the happiness of a head of family depends on the joy to see his children in good health, living in a peaceful environment playing and blooming.

Louka has been distinguished as a brave farmer working mainly for the well-being of his children. He has been designated by his fellows as their leader in the frame of Farmer Managed Natural Regeneration approach as new agricultural practice initiated by World Vision Eco-agric in Sahel project.

World Vision Eco-agric in Sahel project in Nonsombougou ADP is having Louka as a partner farmer playing the role of interface between all the farmers of Marakala town. He is involving in community mobilizations which consist to inform and train his fellow farmers in the community. Information he gives to the other farmers in community concerns actions to be taken in the frame of the new agricultural approaches and techniques in order to develop farmers’ resilience and increase single family crop production. Those techniques and approaches farmers must learn and adopt were unknown before the intervention of Eco-agric in Sahel project of World Vision. 

The integrated management of agriculture with the protection of trees and shrubs inside farms, the techniques of manuring, the practice of anti-erosion fight with the installation of stones’ lines, zai, etc., agriculture of conservation constitutes some of the topics of those trainings and information sessions.

As pilot farmer, Louka received several trainings of Eco-agric in Sahel project that allow him to support his whole community with his new skills. “Ihave been able to train and educate44 farmer association group leaders, 26 persons of women association group in our village. Now, I personally know 17 farmers who apply FMNR in their family or individual farm” Louka said.

Louka and his family members tested out Farmer Managed Natural Regeneration on a surface of 3 hectares. On that surface, we can see several trees scattered because in the past, they used to erase all of the little trees inside the farm in order to allow the plow to work smoothly.  “Before, I was concerned by the comfort of plow and bulls drawing, I did not want them to encounter any obstacle with trees’ trunk and roots when plowing. Now with Eco-agric in Sahel project, my elder brother and I changed our approach of cultivation. We understood that the lack of trees on the site furthered soil deterioration; roots and leaves of the trees in the farm improve the structure of the soil and also boost fertilization and humidity.” Chiaka the brother of Louka said. 

Actually when Louka left small trees in his farm in accordance with techniques advised by FMNR approaches, that allowed him to have rapid increase and diversity of varieties on the site. With the monthly monitoring of World Vision field facilitator, Louka is keen to keep working on FMNR approaches as he is doing now. 

According to Louka: “Today, I am happy to see some new small trees regenerated and managed in my farm. For example, on a surface of one hectare, there is about 25 trees saved thank to FMNR. Before FMNR techniques here, the surface had barely 5 old shea trees. After one season, we managed to have 19 more trees and with different varieties.” 

In addition to training and information sessions, Eco-agric in Sahel project provided to communities improved seeds. So, Louka and his family benefited 10 kg of corn, 10 Kg sorghum 08 Kg millet. 

Indeed, Louka’s family crop production reaches 1380kg per hectare whereas their maximum yield was barely 1000kg/ha in Sorghum. That generated a climate of joy and well-being in the family because sorghum production is mainly used for family consumption as staple food. 

Fatouma the spouse of Louka concluded: “Children go regularly to school because they are no longer worry about hunger. We as parents, feel reassured in term of food auto-sufficiency. Every morning, children drink porridge made from sorghum. Thank to the considerable crop production, our family is happy to enjoy the tô which is a local meal prepared with sorghum flour with tasty sauce made from baobab leaves.”