![]() ![]() For millennia in the coastal and miombo forests of southeastern Africa this was a sustainable system, with both forest and human communities in balance.įortunately, there are many techniques for doing exactly that. ![]() ![]() After a period of time, maybe five or ten years, the crops grown in these burned forest fields used up the nutrients, yields dropped, and farmers moved on, clearing new fields into forest, and letting forest recolonize and overtake the old fields. The stored nutrients from the trees and branches provide the nutrients – the fertilizer – for the crops planted in the generally nutrient-poor soils where this type of farming developed. In traditional swidden, or “slash and burn,” agriculture, farmers cut a field into forest, and burn the branches and wood from the forest trees. But in fact, this traditional farming system is based in sound ecology, and was sustainable for many millennia, until overwhelmed recently by rapid human population growth. So-called “slash and burn” farming may sound bad, and it has a bad reputation recently. The Farmer Field School will demonstrate new farming techniques and improved crop varieties that can help these subsistence farmers grow more food on the land they have already cleared, and maintain its soil fertility, so that they won’t have to continue the traditional, endless cycle of “slash and burn” agriculture. Saja Village meeting with the CARE-WWF Farmer Field School team ![]()
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