Harouna Sana | June 11, 2023
The sun is high overhead in Mogtédo, a town located about 100 kilometres from Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso. Saydou Pacéré is sitting under the shade of a shea tree. He is resting after spending the morning digging zaï pits in his four-hectare field to prepare for the rainy season. He grows maize, sorghum, and cowpeas. He says, “Without these farming techniques, I don’t harvest anything from my field.”
Mr. Pacéré uses stone lines, zaï pits, and half-moon ditches to enrich his field and get good harvests. In the village of Mogtédo, as elsewhere in Burkina Faso, the land is degraded and impoverished due to climate change and poor agricultural practices.
Mr. Pacéré says these soils must be enriched before they can be used. He adds, “It is difficult to produce now if we do not adopt agricultural techniques of enrichment and water retention.”
To retain runoff water, Mr. Pacéré built stone lines on sloping land throughout his farm. The barriers stop rainwater from running down slopes and allow it to infiltrate into the soil and keep it moist. To achieve this, Mr. Pacéré places rows of stones against each other across the contour of the slope, in the opposite direction that the rainwater flows. The stone lines slow down the flow of water and catch soil, dead leaves, and other debris that enrich the soil.
Mr. Pacéré digs holes on parts of his plot that are lined with stone barriers. These are called zaï pits. The holes are in a line or staggered and spaced at least 50 centimetres apart. They are 40 centimetres in diameter and 20 centimetres deep, and are designed to collect and hold rainwater. Farmers add compost or other organic fertilizer and then plant seeds in the pits with the first rains.
Mr. Pacéré uses is half-moon ditches. These are large, semi-circular holes, four metres in diameter and 25 centimetres deep. They are oriented in the field in the same way as zaï pits, and filled with soil mixed with organic fertilizer.
In addition, Mr. Pacéré also uses organic manure or compost, produced from crop residues, grasses, and animal droppings. To make the compost, he mixes these materials in a pit dug in the ground. He waters and stirs the mixture for at least 10 weeks to obtain finished compost.
Boukaré Sankara is a water and forestry technician with Burkina Faso’s Ministry of the Environment. He says that half-moons, stone lines, and zaï pits are effective ways to conserve water and enrich the soil. Mr. Sankara says these techniques, combined with compost, help to fertilize the soil and conserve its moisture during drought. He adds that proper use of these methods can enable farmers to double or triple their yields. He says they have already resulted in the recovery of at least 46% of degraded soil in Burkina Faso, according to government statistics.
Using these good farming practices, Mr. Pacéré produces enough for his family and is safe from food shortages. He says with pride: “Thanks to these techniques, I’ve had surplus production in recent years, which I sell to look after my family. I’ve built a breeze-block house and enrolled my children in school.”
