Farmers improve yields with traditional soil-building practices that restore and fertilize damaged soils

| February 20, 2017

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In this week’s Farmer story from Kenya, Elizabeth Wambui conserves water and reclaims degraded land by using Zai pits.

Zai pits have a long history in Burkina Faso, a country in the heart of West Africa. Desertification, or progressive drying of the land, has grown worse in the country over the last four decades because of drought. Water and wind erosion and the impact of human activities such as farming have significantly degraded soils. Scarce and irregular rainfall also makes farming difficult, and climate change further complicates farmers’ lives.

But farmers in Burkina Faso’s Central Plateau are having success tackling this situation with traditional techniques such as zai, demi-lunes, and stone lines. Indeed, much land that was damaged is now suitable for farming and farmers are receiving better yields.

In this script, we meet with local farmers and an agricultural expert who share their experiences in restoring degraded land.

You could air this script on your station, using actors to represent the characters. If so, make sure to inform your audience at the beginning of the program that the voices are those of actors, and not the people involved in the original interviews.

You could also use this script as inspiration to research and develop a radio program on ways to revive damaged soils and degraded lands in your own area.

If you choose to use this script as inspiration for creating your own program, you could talk to farmers and other experts, and ask the following questions:

  • If there are degraded lands in your area, how were the lands and soils degraded?
  • What solutions have farmers found for reviving these soils?
  • What are the challenges or barriers to adopting these solutions? Have farmers found solutions to these challenges or barriers?

Apart from speaking directly to farmers and other key players in the local agricultural sector, you could use these questions as the basis for a phone-in or text-in program.

http://scripts.farmradio.fm/radio-resource-packs/101-getting-and-using-audience-feedback-and-evaluating-radio-programs/farmers-improve-yields-with-traditional-soil-building-practices-that-restore-and-fertilize-damaged-soils/