Hello there,
I am involved in a project focused on developing sustainable agriculture practices in an arid region with challenging environmental conditions. We are working with a community that relies heavily on agriculture for their livelihoods; but they face significant difficulties due to limited water resources; poor soil quality; and extreme temperatures.
Our goal is to introduce and implement sustainable practices that can help improve crop yields; conserve water; and enhance soil fertility over the long term. We are particularly interested in techniques that have been successfully applied in similar arid environments.
What are the most effective methods for conserving water in arid regions? We are considering options such as drip irrigation; rainwater harvesting; and the use of drought resistant crop varieties. Has anyone had success with these or other methods?
Given the poor soil quality; what are the best practices for enhancing soil fertility in such regions? Are there specific organic amendments or cover crops that have proven effective?
Also, I have gone through this post; https://www.echocommunity.org/en/resources/6c7e42fa-a380-4a61-b9d2-f325206bf0c7ccsp which definitely helped me out a lot.
How can we best engage and educate the local community about the benefits of sustainable practices? What strategies have worked in similar projects to ensure community buy in and long term success?
Thank you in advance for your help and assistance.
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Ultimately I have to think that it becomes a matter of just how great the challenges are. It is very, very difficult for anyone to find what they need to survive in what is, metaphorically, a parking lot, like the middle of the Sahara Desert. There needs to be some rainfall, some moisture in the ground, some life from the microscopic to the vertebrate with pollinators in between before you can really start thinking about “farming”. Even a place like the Mojave dessert on the California - Arizona border is something that humans can at best pass through - except where they have brought in ridiculous amounts of water from the Colorado River.
But if there is an obvious rain season, or if you know that historically there was vegetation before overgrazing destroyed it, or perhaps there even still is - well this is more promising.
Swales are very useful. More aggressively, yes, it might well be worth it to drip irrigate fruit and nut trees or vines or bushes. And if you are in an area with many very small wadis it might even be worth considering repeatedly damming them along their routes, then observering how long it takes the water to seep out and if this could be a way to irrigate a patch of land downstream of each dam.
The ECHOcommunity collection on Dryland Farming might be helpful in gathering thoughts, suggestions.
We work in Central Tanzania, East Africa, in an area with around 500mm (~20 inches) of rain per year, most of which comes down in January and March. We have a 60 acres farm.
Most of what we plant are perennials, as the rainfalls have become too erratic and unpredictable due to climate change.
We have swales and ponds in place that will harvest up to 2.5 million liters of rain water when full. This will seep into the ground and keep our soils moist through the dry season. Not enough for annuals, but good enough for our trees.
We also plant deep rooted grasses and fodder trees for our livestock.
Depending on where you are, your choice of plants etc. will change, but the main points are always:
Manage your (rain) water as best as you can.
Minimize evaporation as much as you can (heavy mulching, shading).
Build soil like crazy (again mulching, composting, composting pits etc.)
All the best!
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Hi Robert!
I’m glad you found the Dryland Farming Best Practice Note helpful! I have a lot of ideas as well as questions! Could we schedule a time to meet and share ideas? Please email me at tru@echocommunity.org or direct message me on this platform to schedule a time!
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Robert,
Where is your project located? Just how dry is it?
Bob
Look up work by Brad Lancaster, Niel Spackman (e.g. Al-Baidha project) or just Dryland Permaculture on You-Tube
Lots of good examples in India though they often have a monsoon. Andrew Millison has documented many.
Yes context is everything - there’s dry, and there’s dry!
We have had a lot of success using water drip irrigation using elevated tanks with direct solar water pumps. Developing a consistent water resource is almost a must-have foundation block in an arid region. No doubt ongoing training of farmers is needed for several crop cycles until they become knowledgeable how to manage various scenarios.
Composting should be an ongoing method on any farm as it is usually the least expensive option. Buying/applying fertilizer is a matter of profitability. Yield will increase but your expenses will be higher. Same thing with chemicals and buying insect resistant seeds. Crop selection in arid regions should be done carefully with much thought. More extensive soil testing by crop can give you some good clues. (Roland Bunch restoring the soil is a classic read if you haven’t already)
Most smallholder farmers in challenging environments don’t seem to keep great records of their activities. They especially like to forget the times when things don’t go well. One learns from trials to be better next time. Thus, a constant line of communication and trust is needed between farmers in the community and outside help to reach higher levels of food productivity. Be sure to work with those who grasp this concept immediately rather than force it upon them.
Lots of good points above. I have found this article interesting. I don’t think many people are aware of the techniques of the Native Americans who planted in the SW deserts in alluvial plains where the limited water came and seeped into the ground. That is where they planted. This is a paper on it and this information is not found in other places that I am aware of:https://www.permies.com/t/31794/a/13969/Project-Deep-Roots.pdf?download_attachment=true
Then this is a plethora of information and I don’t think anything comparable is in the dryland articles but I did not look at everything but you need to try some of these methods depending on the slope and the permeability of the soil and the amount of rainfall. 5. Water harvesting techniques I probably can steer you to ones most likely to be successful but you also can read which techniques go with which % slope. I also have a technique I use that places several small swales that lead to a hole where I have put organic matter at the bottom and some soil on top and put the plant in that depression and the 3 or 4 small swales harvest water to the depression. That system I use on level ground but the other systems I would use on slopes and even the most gentle slopes can be put to use and combined with the techniques in the FAO article and swales strategically placed to collect, channel and concentrate a smaller area of water infiltration. I would never ever skimp on using fertilizer. The worse the soil the more important thick mulch, deep organic matter in holes, and any source of fertilizer because nitrogen moves by the bulk flow of water into the plant so that means that nitrogen has to be very concentrated (but not so concentrated as to burn the plants) in the area around the plant and to avoid burning it needs to be in the organic complex held to the organic matter preferably. I use a lot of human urine if the culture will allow it and I put it on in a rain event if you have an occasional rain but if not then you irrigate. Never use anything salty like that after transplanting and don’t use too much on a plant or the heat will kill it. You will also need shade and so you are going to be best planting under legume trees that produce shade and using the orchard spreader or morning sun or tip’i agroforestry systems I have developed. They are in my biased opinion (since I developed these techniques and compared them to other existing systems) superior to other agroforestry systems because they dial in more shade just when you need it: in the afternoon and when your plant is running out of water. They allow you to manipulate the tree to get shade exactly when you want it. I can send you diagrams on these systems if you write to me at janzen200@yahoo.com. Agroforestry may not work in all situations but it generally improves the soil fertility and provides some shade and some trees actually hydrologically pump water and release it near the surface and then take it back in with the nutrients it finds at the surface. I like the damming idea mentioned above and sand dams also. There is a Michigan State researcher, Alvin Smucker who invented a system to put plastic underground and catch water and retain fertilizer from leaching. That is very expensive but scrap plastic may allow you to so some similar water harvesting unless you can afford it. If there is a lot of perennial you can coppice or pollard some (so it regrows) and put it in raised beds along with other organic matter to make a raised bed more fertile. I generally put longer materials down and build raised beds over them and shorter materials in planting holes. That puts a lot of fertility in the ground which can make a big difference.