Session 5 Social and Development Issues

Invited Paper

Extension of Acacia albida: Recapitalization of the Natural Resource Base

M. McGahuey¹

Abstract

Acacia albida parks, despite their well-known usefulness to agriculture and livestock, are becoming less numerous in many areas with deteriorating environmental and economic conditions. Realizing that there is no single technological fix, a small but growing number of smallholders are trying a wide array of relatively low-input practices to increase soil, forest, and range productivity. The establishment of A., albida trees is among these options, but the diffusion of the tree is localized. If the tree is to contribute to the long-term recapitalization of the soil's productive capacity, it should be part of a broader strategy that includes short- as well as long-term benefits and builds on lessons learned from past experience.

Introduction

Acacia albida is a tree that is well known to most workers involved in agricultural development in the Sahel. The traditions of the region include many stories and proverbs about the tree, and its impact on soil productivity and animal nutrition has been the topic of serious research (Felker 1978). But relatively little is known about its extension except that its establishment is probably on the decline.

It is the premise of this paper that A. albida, because of its long-term impacts on soil and livestock productivity, be seriously considered for any plan focusing on sustainable agricultural development. The purposes of this paper are (1) to support this premise by examining the role of this tree in traditional production systems, (2) to examine past experience in its extension, both traditional and assisted, and (3) to consider options for future extension.

The Closing of the Frontier

At some point during the last 20 or 25 years, something happened to a group of Sahelian farmers that fundamentally changed the way they farmed the frontier closed. The 'frontier' in this context is the new land (or the old fallowed land) normally available to farmers as the land under cultivation is degraded. A management option upon which our illustrative group depended was no longer available. While the above group is illustrative, we can be sure that it existed. It was not the first group to have dealt with this new reality. Porteres (1954a, 1954b) writes of fallow periods being short or nonexistent in parts of the Groundnut Basin of Senegal in the early 1950s. Nor is it the last—there are still relatively large frontier areas in the Sahel and Sudanian zones, such as the lands freed from onchocercosis. But this disappearance of the frontier started to accelerate during the drought of the early 1970s, as more and more farmers, herders, and woodcutters were forced to move on to increasingly marginal lands.

Given the increasing rate of degradation, one can see the day, possibly in the lifetime of a current generation, when 'new lands' are a thing of the past in the Sahelian and woody Savanna Zones of West Africa. At that time, will the productive capacity of all lands be so marginalized that it will be able to support only a small proportion of the present population, or will there be more intensive, but sustainable and economically viable, management systems?

To prepare for that day, better and long-range stewardship of the natural resource base must begin now, and, as this paper illustrates, A. albida has a major role to play. But the establishment of the tree depends upon the willingness of today's farmers to participate in an activity from which they can expect few tangible returns within the next 10 years. Consequently, wider diffusion of A. albida should be seen as an element within a strategy that has short-term as well as long-term impacts; that ensures that smallholders have long-term security over the products of better management; and, that strengthens the capacity of local villages to manage village lands.

Coping in the Face of New Realities

As the new realities are better appreciated, one sees discernible, if localized, changes in the way smallholders manage the natural resource base.

Agroforestry technologies, including renewed interest in the establishment of A. albida, are among the natural resource management practices being adopted. It is the premise of this paper that ignoring the lessons learned from these types of experience will lead to repeating old mistakes based on the notion that economic growth depends primarily on the development of new technologies.

On the contrary, assessments of dozens of resource management case studies tell us that we do not need to wait for technological breakthroughs to make substantial progress toward achieving sustainable rural economic growth. Rather, we need to better appreciate the constraints to the wider diffusion of existing technologies and understand, this would enable wider diffusion of a whole range of technologies, including the 'old' A. albida system.

Risks and Benefits

Whether to invest in the extension of A. albida is, above all, an economic question. The success or failure of the extension effort depends upon balancing costs and benefits. At the household level, the focus is necessarily on the short-term risks, while the national government must balance the costs of doing nothing about long-term productive capacity against the delayed benefits from long-term investments.

Constraints and Risks

Farm-level Economic Risk. There are indeed risks to establishing A. albida; for instance,

• While smallholders may have to invest time and effort in protecting young trees, they cannot expect to receive benefits for at least 7-9 years, and more likely substantial benefits probably cannot be expected for 15-20 years. This is a risk for many smallholders living on the margin of survival.

• Establishing trees in agricultural fields is a potential problem for animal or machine cultivation. One must remember that trees planted today will have a long-term impact on those considerations.

• The tree can become a nuisance because of its thorns and its tendency to attract granivorous birds.

• Finally, there is the question of who owns the rights to use the products of the trees (fruit, leaves, wood, etc) or the ground upon which it stands can become a source of contention.

Institutional Constraints. Despite excellent and detailed research work in the 1960's, A. albida has been ignored by many agronomists. Charreau, according to Pelissier (1966), expressed astonishment that, during 40 years of agronomic work in the Groundnut Basin of Senegal, European researchers (and we can now add American) had given little serious consideration to the agronomic potential of A. albida. As a tree it was considered as an obstruction to agricultural development, and the primary research was to determine how much mineral fertilizer was required to replace the amount lost after the removal of the tree.

It should be noted that Charreau (1974) was one of the first agricultural researchers to give serious consideration to the agronomic aspects of A. albida. In his wake followed a number of other French and Senegalese researchers who contributed substantially to our knowledge of the tree. Dancette and Saar (1985) noted that most of this research occurred before 1968 and went on to write that ' this interest, alas, did not continue.' But the studies up to 1968 were intensive and covered the impact of the tree on millet and sorghum yields, on soil organic matter, on microbiological properties, and on agroclimatology. From the late 1960s through the mid-1970s, agricultural research was guided by the notion that the problems of increased pressure on land resources and reduced fallow periods could be met by addition of mineral fertilizer (Dancette and Saar 1985). However, this orientation changed as it became evident that mineral fertilizer and improved varieties were not, in themselves, sufficient to sustain increased productivity.

Dancette and Saar (1985) further wrote that this narrow orientation against rational use of all sorts of naturally produced soil amendments greatly influenced the degradation process in the Groundnut Basin. To correct the faults of these past orientations-and given the vagaries of the world's petroleum market these authors suggested promoting better use of the natural forms of soil amendments, including revitalizing interest in the A. albida system.

Traditional Husbandry of A. albida

Looking at traditional systems is one way to capture hard-earned knowledge; in many dry regions of Africa, A. albida plays major roles in these systems. For example, numerous sources report the role of the species in various agrosilvipastoral systems in Africa. In Niger, old established stands are not an accident. The Sultan of Zinder, over 100 years ago, is reported to have made cutting an A. albida a capital offense (Wentling 1983) and the legend, real or not, appears to reflect a respect for the usefulness of the tree as manifest in the thick stands of the tree in regions around Zinder. Others report mature stands to be widespread in parts of Mali, Burkina Faso, Malawi, Sudan, Chad, and Zimbabwe, and in Senegal, where it was the foundation of production system of the Groundnut Basin.

The Agrosilvipastoral System of the Senegal Groundnut Basin

Pélissier (1966) reported on the role and extension of A. albida in the Serere systems in Senegal. He noted that the quasi-permanent production system of the Serere depended upon A. albida parks and allowed pastoral sedentarization, which in turn, helped stabilize the production system by contributing large quantities of manure.

The establishment and maintenance of these parks depended upon a proactive and systematic husbandry by farmers, who tended and pruned young trees and controlled how limbs were lopped. The phrase for tending young trees in the local language was very similar to that used for raising a child.

Degradation of Natural Stands

Despite the obvious benefits of the tree, its density is on decline in many places. Dancette and Saar (1985) report on the disappearance in the Groundnut Basin of many A. albida parks over the last 20 years and link the reduced productivity of these areas to this disappearance. In visiting the Groundnut Basin today, one is struck by the old, overmature stands of A. albida. the trees have been harshly pruned and crowns that once enriched hundreds of square meters of soil now cover only a small area. But a more telling measure of the decline of these old parks is the lack of young seedlings. One can imagine that the next drought will kill off many of the existing trees leaving a barren, unprotected and, much less productive landscape.

The Groundnut Basin is not the only area where A. albida parks are in a state of degradation. In the Mopti region of Mali, the tree is well established, but the stand consists primarily of very mature trees with few young trees. The demise of these mature trees will have the same consequences as in Senegal. In response to the condition around Mopti, a senior Malian forester suggest a policy change to allow farmers to harvest a couple of trees per year per hectare without a fine if they protect five young trees for every tree harvested.

Recent Initiatives in Agroforestry Extension

Farmer-Managed Extension

During natural resource management assessments over the last few years, farmers have often been found protecting young A. albida trees and practicing other forms of agroforestry. While these cases do not represent an adequate groundswell of action to address the magnitude of the problem, they do provide insights into the conditions contributing to actions being taken.

There has been a resurgence of interest in reestablishing the A. albida in the Senegal Groundnut Basin (J. Seyler, 1990, Michigan State University, personal communication). This is due to several reasons. First, there is a growing realization on the part of many farmers, that intensification of some kind is needed, but that mineral fertilizer alone is not sufficient. Second, in the Groundnut Basin there is a decline in use of mineral fertilizer since the withdrawal of subsidy support. The plausibility of the link between lower fertilizer subsidies and higher interest in agroforestry will have to wait for more analysis, but is intriguing.

Donor-Supported Extension

A. albida has been extended through a number of projects, including Peace Corps/Niger Gao Project, the United Nations Sudano-Sahel Organization (UNSO) Project in the Department of Dosso (Niger), the United States Agency for International Development (USAID)/Senegal Reforestation Project and the CARE/Chad A. albida Project. This section will also review a project that encourages natural regeneration of any trees—not just A. albida.

Peace Corps/Niger Gao Project. In 1973, U.S. Peace Corps volunteers initiated a project to establish A. albida trees in a number of villages. The major inputs included fencing materials, plastic pots, and food-for-work. The results varied from excellent (near Maradi) to poor, the reasons for the impact varying with the site, the interest of the village, and, doubtless, the volunteer. These sites should be revisited to determine the impact of these trees and to correlate the impacts to the characteristics of each site.

UNSO Gao Project. This project, located in Dosso, Niger, and visited during this workshop, has gone through several changes in policy. The sites have varying survival and growth rates. The policy of sharing the cost of establishing the trees by paying money to farmers on a survival-rate basis was easier to control and administer than food-for-work.

USAID/Senegal Reforestation Project. This project is only about 2 years old and impacts are starting to be assessed. The project encourages reforestation through cost sharing by reimbursing farmers for half their costs. As in UNSO/GAO project, the farmers receive funds only after the first year and only after a certain survival rate has been verified.

CARE-Chad A. albida Project. In 1975, CARE-Chad initiated the A. albida Extension Project aimed at establishing the tree on 3500 ha of farmland over 3 years, in the region from Bongor to Massaguet. Although the target had been achieved by 1978, the survival rates were highly variable.

The rationale for the project was that much of the farmland in this area had only been open to agriculture during the last generation and did not have A. albida trees to provide cover. Consequently, as the lands were cleared for millet and sorghum (and for cotton in the south), nearly all permanent vegetation was removed; as noted above, this could only lead to the eventual loss of the productivity of large areas of land once the topsoil was leached and eroded.

The project worked with farmers to stake the land, to plant the trees out, and to protect them from livestock and fire. For each of these steps, the farmers received food rations. Most farmers planted out 200 trees on 2 ha. In the Bongor area, where the tree was widely spread and constituted an integral part of the farming system, protection of natural regeneration was used with impressive success. In 1985, I returned to the project area and estimated that 600 to 800 ha had 25 ha^-1 or more surviving trees, a sufficient density to provide a sustainable impact in terms of crop and forage yields. Because the visit occurred in September, it was possible to see the effects on crops and other grasses under the 8- to 10-year old trees. Given the upright habit of young A. albida trees, the area covered by the crown was small; nevertheless, some of the trees had begun to produce fruit. The possible reasons for the variation in survival rate include the following:

• Seedling size. It is possible that the larger seedlings survived better; 3-4 months' growth in the nursery seemed ideal. One or two root prunings did not appear to have any negative effects on the survival or growth of the seedlings. The survival rate of the seedlings grown in the larger (30 cm) pots was higher. In April of both 1976 and 1977, the road to the project area was closed for 2 weeks by political disturbances. Consequently, the fuel supplies for two nurseries ran out and thousands of seedlings died. We resowed the pots, but the seedlings sown in the April and May heat were extremely small-the survival rates from these planting was very poor.

• Rainfall distribution. The earlier and more even the rains, the better is the survival rate. We planted out as early in the season as possible, primarily because it became too difficult to find the planting sites once the grain crops reached knee height in the field to be planted.

• Supervision. With better supervision of the planting, the survival rate is better. In some areas, fields were grouped together, supervision was very good, and survival was high; in other areas, fields were more isolated, and the quality of the work depended upon the participating individuals.

• Food-for-work. Given the logistics of moving large amounts of food, using food as an incentive was often disruptive to forestry operations.

• Initial number of farmers. Because of the 4-year time-frame of the project, which was considerably compressed by the war, there was pressure to work with as many farmers as possible in the first year before many of the logistic and technical service approaches had been adequately tested.

Recapitalizing the Natural Resource Base

Conceptual Premise

The future of the rural economy of the Sahel depends upon recapitalizing the productive capacity of the natural resource base in the short, medium, and long terms. Short-term elements such as improved varieties and mineral fertilizers have important roles, but are not in themselves sufficient (Charreau 1974). Wider diffusion of A. albida and other agroforestry systems is among the conditions for the future productivity of the Sahel.

The recapitalization should take place in the context of a strategy that builds on the new partnership emerging between village-level organizations and governments. At the base of this new relationship is a sharing of both the responsibility of protecting the natural resource base and the benefits from that stewardship. The following strategy is based on field experience and contains few, if any, untried elements.

Operational Elements

Economic Analysis. Before there is a commitment by host governments or donors, an economic analysis should be conducted in order to establish the value of benefits and the cost of doing nothing. Scenarios with and without long-term investments such as A. albida should be considered. This analysis should be conducted by a team including both donors and host-government officials and cover a 20-year period. This type of analysis was conducted in Mali under the USAID Natural Resource Management Project.

Land-Use Plans. Village-level, land-use plans should be developed to give security over use rights, these plans should contain long-range measures. Personnel from the various technical services, in collaboration with village representatives, should develop a village lands development plan that addresses management of soil, range, and forest resources in the short, medium, and long terms. This step requires a strengthening and reorientation of technical services. In particular, the roles of Forestry Service personnel would be reoriented from regulatory to outreach and additional training may be required. The plan should specify the rights of the village to the products of better management as well as the villagers' responsibility for long-range measures, including establishing A. albida parks. The plan should identify assistance to be provided to villages that adopt the long-term measures.

Assistance. Assistance should be provided on a priority basis to those villages implementing long-term measures and should be aimed at increasing the productive capacity of the village lands. Illustrative types of assistance include the following:

• The right to harvest living trees. If the farm has a uniform stand of large A. albida trees, the farmer would be allowed to harvest one large tree for every five trees established.

• Assistance for short-term investments. For smallholders who establish A. albida stands, assistance should be provided for recapitalization measures that have short- as well as medium- and long-term impacts. For example, stabilizing the soil through contour dikes may require the transport of stones or cutting of grasses such as andropogon or vetiver. Provision of rock phosphate to those establishing A. albida is an option that could be justified because of its capacity to 'kick-start' the recapitalizing process. Farmers should also be provided with appropriate technical assistance.

• Strengthening the organizational capacity of village-level organizations. As a growing number of villages are discovering, the village-level capacity to manage enterprises and negotiate with outside groups is a very powerful tool. Making the establishment of a land-use management plan a condition for providing assistance to strengthening village-level organizations would be an incentive.

• Assistance in gaining first-hand knowledge. Assisting smallholders to make informed decisions about which practices to adopt is critical to the strategy. In the case of establishing the A. albida, for example, smallholders have the option of natural regeneration or potted stock. They should see examples of both option.

Choice of Sites. It is essential to start small and build on success. The first sites should be chosen for their potential for success and should form the foundation for future diffusion. It is critical in the initial years to develop a core of successful sites and to use these as examples for other villages to make informed decisions about the benefits and costs of participating in the strategy. These sites would also be used to strengthen the capacity of host governments to provide services and formulate policies that increase the incentives for long-term investments at the village level.

References

Charreau, C. 1974. Soils of tropical dry and wet climatic areas of West Africa and their use and management. Presented in USAID-supported lecture series. Cornell University, USA.

Dancette, C., and Sarr, P.L. 1985. Dégradation et régénération des sols dans les régions Centre-Nord du Sénégal (Cap-Vert, Thies, Diourbel, Louga). Département Systèmes et Transfert. Travaux et Documents no. 2. Dakar, Senegal: Institut senegalalais de recherches agricoles. 22 pp.

Felker, P. 1978. State of the art: Acacia albida as a complementary permanent intercrop with annual crops. Grant no. AID/afr-C-1361. Washington, D.C., United States Agency for International Development. Ph.D. thesis, University of California, Riverside, Cal-fornia, USA. 133 pp.

Pelissier, P. 1966. Les Paysans du Sénégal. Les civilisations agraires du Cayor à la Casamance. Saint-Yrieix, France: Imprimerie Fabrègue. 939 pp.

Portères, R. 1954a. The improvement of agricultural economy in Senegal. African Soils. III(1):13-51.

Portfères, R. 1954b. Scheme for the improvement of the agricultural economy of Senegal. African Soils III(2):184-235.

Wentling, M.G. 1983. Acacia albida: arboreal keystone of successful agropastoral systems in Sudano-Sahelian Africa. M.Sc. Thesis, Department of Animal Sciences, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, USA.

Footnote__________

1 United Stales Agency for International Development (USAID). Washington, USA.

McGahuey, M. 1992. Extension of Acacia albida: recapitalization of the natural resource base. Pages 159-164 in Faidherbia albida in the West African semi-arid tropics: proceedings of a workshop, 22-26 Apr 1991. Niamey, Niger (Vandenbeldt. R.J., ed.). Patancheru, A.P. 502 324, India: International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics; and Nairobi, Kenya: International Centre for Research in Agroforestry.