Agricultural Intensification in Semi-Arid Africa

Technical change in African agriculture is not easy to see. There are few spectacular fields of miracle rice or wheat. Here are two examples of the ways that African farmers are getting around their problems. Many other kinds of new investment are also important--these are just a couple for which I happened to have gotten good photos.

In the "before" shot, plant densities are very low and crops are stunted in part because of very limited moisture. The crop residues you see on the ground are of barely any help in mulching the field for soil and water conservation.

In the "after" field, seeds were planted into small water-harvesting catchment holes dug across the field. Plant density is still low but now moisture is concentrated in the catchment hole. Manure and compost were applied directly around the plant.

This technique is extremely laborious, so is not adopted unless land is extremely scarce and people have very low incomes.

Here the "before" picture shows a livestock pen in an area where animals go to common grazing areas for their feed. The little manure left in the pen is dried out by the sun, but the faint lines on the field in the background show where some was carried to the field.

The second photo shows what's done when open grazing is no longer sufficient. The farmer has built a covered "barn" under which the animals sleep and get extra fodder (here cowpea hay). They also get extra bedding (here it is millet stalks). The result is a larger volume of richer manure, which is returned to the fields, sometimes in conjunction with the water-harvesting technique shown above.

Such a change can be seen in many different areas when commons grazing becomes exhausted and farmers turn to feeding their animals directly.