Sahel H2O. ICRISAT & AVRDC in Africa

THE SAHEL - The plot thickens! You are in West Africa, in Sahel, between the devil (Sahara Desert) and the deep blue sea (actually the Red Sea). Where is the corpus delicti here, the body of crime? Who was responsible for those 100,000 dead bodies? Sherlock Holmes: "Elementary, My Dear Watson, elementary. The killer goes by the code name H2O."

Elementary, that is, of the elements hydrogen and oxygen. Water. Between 1968 and 1973, because of drought, the USAID estimated 100,000 died (faqs.org). The vegetation of the region was "virtually wiped out" (globalsecurity.org). In fact, a study published in the New Scientist suggests that in the last 3000 years, the African Sahel has had more severe droughts (Catherine Brahic, 16 April 2009). The Sahel - which covers parts of Senegal, Mauritania, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, Nigeria, Chad, Sudan, Somalia, Ethiopia, and Eritrea - the region, is "one of the poorest and most environmentally damaged places on Earth" (PBS, pbs.org). "The whole area is suffering from an ecological disaster" (Sahel, angelfire.com). And all for lack of water.

Unhappily, we can expect then more droughts and deaths to come. William Dar, Director General of the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics, ICRISAT, estimates that this year, 2010, some 2.5 million people in Niger alone may be in the grip of a famine due to crop failure arising from drought. "The soils of the Sahel," Dar says, "are easily eroded, highly leached, have low fertility and high levels of aluminum." If crops don't stand a chance of survival, the humans cannot be far behind.

Where lies hope then? If you are a farmer in the Sahel and of course you have a problem with water, what is the solution? There is only one and only one solution: H2O. That is a given; you cannot do away with it. If you cannot change the climate, what can you change? You can always change your crop, to a variety that is miserly on H2O. That is a lesson from ICRISAT.

You can ask for seeds from the partnership of ICRISAT (based in India) and the AVRDC (based in Taiwan) working in the Sahel. (AVRDC is the popular acronym of the World Vegetable Center, from its former name, the Asian Vegetable Research & Development Center.) There is tomato: ICRI-Xina, the rainy season tomato developed by ICRISAT-AVRDC for the Sahel. You have the PKM1, the superior Indian variety of moringa - which is the drumstick tree, horseradish tree, the Ilocano marunggay - a survivor in any environment, promising good nutrition for humans, and livestock. There is the Koinni, a short-duration okra, a survivor of high heat, promising a delicious, nutritious fresh salad for the table. For those who love goo.

The ICRISAT-AVRDC vegetable partnership started in 2007, with fruitful results. For instance, the ICRI-Xina tomato was planted on 200 ha in Niger in 2009, during the rainy season, providing income to the growers from the plots where no tomato grew before. Planting the PKM1, farmers harvested 7.5 tons per hectare of leaves, 3 times more than the local varieties, not to mention that the PKM1 tasted better. What if some people didn't like moringa on their menu? Science improves the crop; you have to improve your taste.

Aside from the outstanding crop varieties, a major part of the secret of the success of the ICRISAT-AVRDC partnership in the Sahel is the so-called African Market Garden, AMG, which is actually a low-pressure drip-irrigation water-saving system. The precious drops of H2O are drip-rationed by the AMG within a garden of 500 square meters, say 20 by 25 meters. The partnership has come up with several AMG models that give high profits. ICRISAT reports that up to $1500 for each garden has been earned. What's the secret for the success? It's the water, I say. Better crops, better fertilizers, better farmers are no better without H2O.

On 29 March 2010, Monday in Manila, partners ICRISAT and AVRDC were awarded a joint "Science Award for Outstanding Partnership" by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research; CGIAR is the mother agency of the two partners. They were cited not only for developing techniques for growing vegetables on the deserts of West Africa but also for training local West Africans to train the local farmers themselves. The Science Award was presented by CGIAR at the Global Conference on Agricultural Research for Development at Montpellier, France. Scientists become better scientists by becoming better farmers; then they train the farmers to become partners in the transfer of technology to other farmers.

With the assistance of the ICRISAT-AVRDC partnership, it intrigues me that marginalized women in the Sahel have turned infertile soils into fertile wombs of crops, growing native vegetables successfully on barren spots. Dar tells us in June 2006, a group of 120 landless women in the Dosso region of Niger started growing hardy indigenous vegetables on 7 hectares of degraded, abandoned sites. "They used ICRISAT's Bioreclamation of Degraded Lands System," Dar says. Today, 3 years later, 70 hectares of vegetable plots have been rehabilitated, are under cultivation, and the expansion of area continues. "Lush greenery," Dar says. The women must know some things the men don't!

"That is how science can change the lives and health of poor women and children in the Sahel," Dar says. "This ICRISAT-AVRDC partnership in West Africa has massively improved the lives of countless West African children and women," Nigel Poole, Board Chair of ICRISAT says. "I am extremely very proud of this outstanding work of my colleagues."

Dar says the region of West and Central Africa is home to about 100 million people, the poorest on Planet Earth. With extreme heat along with low and erratic rainfall, drought results in crops failures in 2 out of every 5 years. Left alone, nutrition of the population is very poor and mass famines are common. When a drought occurs, the poor families starve as they don't have the means to buy food. Today, they don't have to anymore.

In that context, the small garden system made possible by the AMG, as designed by ICRISAT, has provided a model lifesaver for the malnourished and destitute families in Sahelian Africa. Small vegetable plots nourished by the AMG have become reliable greenfields in the face of the unreliable rain. "The AMG has provided a radical alternative," says Dar, "for reducing poverty and improving nutrition in the Sahelian region of Africa." Radical situations call for radical solutions.

Small is beautiful for the small. Plots of 100 to 500 square meters can now grow enough vegetables to nourish starved bodies and line up somewhat the wallets of mothers for other household necessities. At present, some 5,000 women and their families in the countryside have been reaping the just rewards of their labors, just planting a short-duration okra called the Koinni. From the common goo comes the common good.

On one hand, Dar says ICRISAT has long been in the Sahel trying to improve the harvests of pearl millet, sorghum and groundnut for the small farmers. By the late 1990s, ICRISAT realized that more than improved crop varieties, the small farmers needed high-value crops to help increase their incomes and improve the nutrition of their family members. But which ones, and how?

On the other hand, AVRDC had worked closely with small farmers alongside ICRISAT focusing on malnutrition and income. It was AVRDC that introduced the first heat-tolerant tomato lines in West Africa, leading to the release of Xina in Senegal in 1981. From then on, Xina became extremely popular across the region.

In 2001, ICRISAT appointed Dov Pasternak as head of the Institute's high-value crops program in the Sahel, and this included the improvement of irrigation and cropping systems for small farmers. Here would arise the AMG, Pasternak's brainchild. "The program provided the catalyst for many subsequent projects," says Dar, "the foundation for a full-time presence of AVRDC in the region and the development of a very successful partnership."

In 2003, AVRDC and ICRISAT began regional trial plantings of vegetable varieties. In 2007, a scientist started breeding and selection for a locally adapted okra variety for the Sahel. In 2008, AVRDC formed a team of vegetable breeders for Sahel, funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Early this year, the recognition of a Sahelian job well done came from CGIAR. I say, award well-deserved. For bringing those precious crops and precious drops of water to the Sahel.