Read at : National Geographic
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/geopedia/Sahel#The%20Desert%20in%20Retreat
The Desert in Retreat
By the mid-1980s the village of Ranawa in the small African nation of Burkina Faso was dwindling away. Gripped by a drought that had cut rainfall by a third throughout the Sahel–a band of fragile, arid lands south of the Sahara–Ranawa had seen a quarter of its people leave. Wells ran dry. Only two households still owned cattle. Many croplands had turned hard and barren. “It looked like the tarmac of an airport runway,” says Chris Reij of Amsterdam’s Free University.
Then Ranawa’s remaining farmers tried something new. Now ruined brown lands are once again becoming green.
With the help of aid agencies, the farmers adopted two simple techniques: placing rows of stones along the contours of the area’s gently sloping land, and digging pits in fields. The stones slowed rainfall running off slopes and let farmers plant trees and crops to secure the soil. The pits collected water and allowed it to soak into the dirt. Farmers put manure and seeds in the holes and could once again grow millet and sorghum.
The effects were dramatic. Crop yields increased 50 percent. Wells no longer went dry. Families stopped leaving and resumed raising cattle and planting crops.
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Bibliography
Lange, Karen E. “The Desert in Retreat: Farmers Help Turn Africa’s Sahel Green Again.” National Geographic (July 2003)
