**7.4 Finally, the 'Greening'**

*Plant Communities and Their Environment*

fertiliser is applied shortly before flowering.

of OGA is effective to chase off harmful insects.

*7.3.8 The diversification or the counter-season production*

personal activity or as a collective one.

*7.3.7 Biological insect control*

investment loss.

*7.3.6 OGA*

can boost the yield. Based on this knowledge, micro-dosing as fertiliser strategy has been developed [127, 128]. Micro-dosing means a placed fertilisation (in contrast to broadcast application) into the sowing pocket at sowing or early in the season, where the nutrients are needed most. Only 2 kg of phosporus are able to double the yield on the poorest sites. Micro-dosing at sowing supports the early establishment of the plant. Once the crop is established and crop loss ha not to be expected, further fertilisation can be done without the risk of

However, for the poorest farmers in remote areas, even market access to fertiliser is limited. They can rely on wood ash as local fertiliser, since cooking is done with firewood. Wood ash provides soluble phosphours, potassium, calcium and other micro-nutrients. It can be considered as a complex fertiliser, since it stems from plants. Consequently, it provides most nutrients needed by plants. two grams of wood ash placed into the sowing pocket but at little distance to pearl millet seeds has proven to be effective in increasing yield on poor sites. For legumes, this local

OGA is fermented human urine that is used as liquid fertiliser. It is an autochthonous innovation developed by the farmer organisation Fuma Gaskiya in the Maradi area of Niger taking Asian practices as example. It mainly contains nitrogen and potassium as fertilising compounds and has shown to consistently increase pearl millet biomass and grain yield. It is a resource that is locally available for free. It is placed application makes it efficient in annihilating the nitrogen constraint of crop production. Combined with wood ash application (as source for soluble phosphorus), two local resources can be used to fight the notorious soil deficiency with respect to these nutrients. In addition, it is reported by farmers that the smell

The head miner became a major during the Sahelian droughts of the 1970s. Pesticide control is out of reach for subsistence farmers. In consequence, a biological control mechanism using the parasitoid wasp *Habrobracon hebetor* was developed. The parasitoid can potentially be produced locally. However, there is still no agro-enterprise that has taken up this innovation. Perhaps, production is too sophisticated and potential price levels or too high for application by subsistence

Food security shall be enlarged by intensified and irrigated vegetable production. It constitutes by now a widely accepted activity, wherever the bases are given (**Figure 21C**). It ranges from the vegetable and fruit production in the vicinity of towns or to intensive onion production for export [83, 129]. It can be run on as

Thus, these small-scale projects proved chances on the personal of village level

to earn its own living and to build sustainable base for villages. They fulfil the demand for participativity and local decision on the projects. Moreover, they are less endangered by the overall insecurity and they may develop their systems by own experiences, and guaranteeing thus a long performance, independently from

**90**

external pressures.

farmers.

After all there is an augmentation in the plant cover. It is evident too in the southern Sahara and the northern Sahel as well as in the Park region of the southern Sahel, from where it was taken by [130, 131] as a sign of a principal 'regreening'. But there is still degradation of ecosystems parallel to that recovery in some regions [7, 12].

## **7.5 In the long run – future prospects**

Finally, the green future of the Sahelian areas needs a landscape approach where the different stakeholders jointly act in a way it takes into account that the multiple angles of natural and socio-economic environment. Short-term action by decision makers who want to see short-term results and who are driven by the dogma of novelty – in particular in science – will not lead to a sound outcome. In contrast, the basics need to be understood, more participatory action is needed, and long-term development concepts need to be supported. Agriculture has to and is able to support the landscape productivity and thus 'greening'. No sophisticated approaches are needed, but the insight that subsistence oriented agriculture needs innovations that are simple, affordable and based on local resources. In a long-term, a re-integration of crop and livestock production is inevitable to partly close the nutrient cycle.

The decade long experience of our colleagues from university of Abdou Moumouni university of Niamey [132, 133] came to the general conclusion on regeneration possibilities of degraded landscapes (see **Figure 21**). Damage and degradation of *Acacia-albida*-parks and Combretaceae-savannas in the Southeast of Niger (stages 1 and 2) diminished the resources for the local population in such a dimension that an intervention was necessary. The classical stonewalls on the slopes alone provoked runnels climbing up the slope and aggravated the situation (stage 3). Thus, it was necessary to intervene at all points and for a long period in order to stop further linear erosion and to allow the auto-regeneration of vegetation and soil (stage 4). Especially on silty-clayey grounds, it will take time to collect sufficient organic material on the surface to allow an implantation of grasses and herbs as further stages of succession. Mulching, however, turned out to be successful to attract ants of termites to transport

### **Figure 23.**

*Experiences with the regeneration of an overexploited* Faidherbia*-park Southwest of Niamey [69, 132], modified.*

fines from the deeper parts of the sediments up to the surface (see also [134]). And finally, also follows the ideas of the different 'Tassa' initiatives (see above).

Supported by strong farmer organisations, farmers can make significant progress indepently from the national political situation. Agricultual research should not only focus on single management measures but also adopt a farming systems approach, where combined innovations are researched always under the paradigm of adoptability taking the farmers' view into account [135, 136].

In the long-term, a part of the population needs to gain its living from activities outside agriculture. The pre-requisites to reach this goal are infrastructure and education. The latter should begin in rural areas with agriculture becoming a regular subject in grammar schools (**Figure 23**).
