Environment & Energy
Related: About this forumA 700-year-old West African farming practice could be an answer to climate change
A 700-year-old West African farming practice could be an answer to climate change
Written by
Lily Kuo
June 22, 2016 Quartz africa
For the last 700 years women in Ghana and Liberia have been using a valuable farming technique that modern-day agronomists have only recently figured out. It transforms depleted soil into enduringly fertile farmland.
A team of anthropologists and scientists studied almost 200 sites in the two West African countries and found that women added kitchen waste and charcoal to nutrient-poor tropical soil. The resulting rich black soil, which the researchers call African dark earths, could help countries adapt to the effects of climate change as well as improve agriculture not just in Africa but in resource-poor and food-insecure regions around the world.
This simple, effective farming practice could be an answer to major global challenges such as developing climate smart agricultural systems which can feed growing populations and adapt to climate change, said James Fairhead, an anthropologist from the University of Sussex and co-author of the study.
Food availability has improved almost everywhere since the 1990s, but progress has been slow in sub-Saharan Africa, Central America and southern Asia. In 2015, 795 million people (pdf) around the world were still undernourishedin Africa 23% of the population (pdf. p.3) was still considered hungry, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization.
More:
http://qz.com/713512/a-700-year-old-west-african-farming-practice-could-be-an-answer-to-climate-change/
msongs
(67,405 posts)appal_jack
(3,813 posts)In Central & South America, it has been referred to as "Terra Preta" dark earths. The traditional agricultural practice must have independently evolved on each of the two continents.
-app
eppur_se_muova
(36,262 posts)if you burn coal, what's left is hideously toxic.
Not certain that burning wood on an industrial scale would be sustainable. Better to plow under a certain percentage of stover, and burn the rest for fuel or process it for feedstocks.
OKIsItJustMe
(19,938 posts)They discovered that the ancient West African method of adding charcoal and kitchen waste to highly weathered, nutrient poor, tropical soils can transform the land into enduringly fertile, carbon-rich black soils that the researchers dub African Dark Earths.
NickB79
(19,236 posts)One of these days I'm gonna get around to doing this on a large scale for my 1.5 acre property.
OKIsItJustMe
(19,938 posts)So, you know credit where credit is due
GreydeeThos
(958 posts)https://www.ted.com/talks/allan_savory_how_to_green_the_world_s_deserts_and_reverse_climate_change?language=en
OKIsItJustMe
(19,938 posts)http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/fee.1226/abstract
[font size=4]Abstract[/font]
[font size=3]We describe for the first time a current indigenous soil management system in West Africa, in which targeted waste deposition transforms highly weathered, nutrient- and carbon-poor tropical soils into enduringly fertile, carbon-rich black soils, hereafter African Dark Earths (AfDE). In comparisons between AfDE and adjacent soils (AS), AfDE store 200300% more organic carbon and contain 226 times greater pyrogenic carbon (PyC). PyC persists much longer in soil as compared with other types of organic carbon, making it important for long-term carbon storage and soil fertility. In contrast with the nutrient-poor and strongly acidic (pH 4.35.3) AS, AfDE exhibit slightly acidic (pH 5.66.4) conditions ideal for plant growth, 1.43.6 times greater cation exchange capacity, and 1.32.2 and 5270 times more plant-available nitrogen and phosphorus, respectively. Anthropological investigations reveal that AfDE make a disproportionately large contribution (24%) to total farm household income despite its limited spatial extent. Radiocarbon (¹⁴C) aging of PyC indicates the recent development of these soils (115692 years before present). AfDE provide a model for improving the fertility of highly degraded soils in an environmentally and socially appropriate way, in resource-poor and food-insecure regions of the world. The method is also climate-smart, as these soils sequester carbon and enhance the climate-change mitigation potential of carbon-poor tropical soils.[/font][/font]
4dsc
(5,787 posts)that is all.