Make Drylands Productive with Planting Pits

Backgrounder

Even if you have dry, desert soils with a hard crust you can improve your land and grow crops again. In parts of West Africa farmers make cracked, hardpan soils productive again by planting their grain seeds in small pits. They plant sorghum and millet this way.

Here’s how you can make these planting pits.

Break the crust of the soil. Dig a pit in the soil about 15 20 centimetres deep and 25 centimetres in diameter. Dig one of these pits about every 80 centimetres throughout your field. Put some manure, compost, or leftover crop residues in each pit.

Most farmers dig and fill the pits in the dry season. This gives the manure or crop residues in the pit time to decompose before the rainy season. Other farmers dig pits at the end of the rainy season when the soil crust is easier to break.

When the rains come it’s time to plant the seeds. Plant four to six seeds in each hole. You will find that the seeds germinate quickly and the plants grow better in these pits. This is because water soaks easily into the pit and collects there where the plant can use it. Also, the compost or manure in the pit fertilizes the plant and attracts termites. Termites are important because they improve the soil. They loosen the soil by digging tunnels and they bring up nutrients from deep down in the soil for the plants to use. They can bring nutrients from levels which can’t be reached by the plant roots.

Farmers have proven that this method really can make poor lands productive again. Sometimes farmers get big increases in yields. In some cases farmers who could not grow any grains at all were able to produce 400 kilograms per hectare using this method in a year of low rainfall.
Some farmers harvested as much as 1000 1500 kilograms per hectare in a year of good rainfall.

There is something else you should know about these pits. You can plant tree seeds or seedlings in them too. If you are growing tree seedlings in these pits you’ll find that they are easy to tend and water.

Note: These planting pits are known as zay or tassa pits in some local West African languages.

What is the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification?

It is an agreement signed by countries around the world to share the responsibility of fighting the effects of desertification. Its goal is to help regenerate the soil in arid, semi arid, and dry sub humid regions. The Convention came about at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 1992, where many developing countries, led by African countries, asked for the world’s help in fighting desertification as quickly as possible.

In Paris in October 1994, 87 countries signed the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification. Today more than 115 countries have signed the agreement. Once the governments of 50 countries have confirmed their participation the full course of action will begin. A plan for urgent action has been adopted to encourage immediate efforts in Africa because it is the part of the world which suffers the most from desertification.

What causes desertification?

Desertification is caused by changes in climate and by human activities. Drought sometimes makes soil dry up and crack, or makes the soil problems that already exist even worse. But there are four main ways that people make deserts: by overcultivating the soil, by allowing animals the overgraze the land which removes the covering of vegetation that protects it from erosion, by cutting down or burning trees, and by using improper watering methods which turn cropland salty.

What kind of action will be taken under the Convention?

One of the key elements of the Convention is what is called a “bottom up approach”. This means that people in small communities and their leaders will be consulted before decisions or actions are taken. The people in these communities will be involved in projects to stop desertification in their area. The Convention recognizes that people in affected communities, non governmental organizations, experts, and governments must work together to fight desertification effectively and to find long term solutions. That means farmers and scientists should share ideas about what the most appropriate farming techniques are. These ideas can be discussed with government and non government organizations so that funds can be properly allocated.