Trees for Life

When farmers plant their crops down the slope, they are encouraging water run off, which takes the fertile top soil with it and this contributes to soil infertility which in turn leads to poor harvests, food and income insecurity.

Farming across the slope can reduce some of these challenges, but contour farming should be so much more than that, contour farming is a soil conservation method where farmers plough and plant crops in rows that follow the natural curves (contours) of a slope, rather than straight up and down. This creates a series of small ridges and furrows that act as barriers, slowing down rainwater runoff, increasing water infiltration into the soil, and preventing topsoil and nutrients from being washed away, leading to reduced erosion, better soil health, and higher crop yields. If we take this to the next level you start to develop terracing and for terraces to be strong they need a good root system to hold the soil together.

Trees for Life is a project that starts by establish a tree and grass nursery and trains youth in the community to establish and run it. This is what we have done so that in 12-18 months time they can be planted along the ridges/terraces and support the terrace development. The grasses can of course we used as fodder to the livestock to reduce their free grazing, while the trees can provide either fruit, timber, add nitrogen to the soil or their leaves can be used for pest control. In time as the biodiversity changes we hope to provide bee hives and train youth on honey production.

We are still fundraising for this project, but we could not delay the start. We have negotiated some land with the community leaders in ChemChem and fenced it in, added some rainwater harvesting and storage and some net shading and started to fill the little bags with soil to add the seeds. We have started to train the youth.