This document discusses the potential for large-scale land restoration in Africa through agroforestry practices. It provides evidence of successful regreening initiatives in countries like Niger, Mali, and Ethiopia that have restored millions of hectares of land. Agroforestry approaches like farmer-managed natural regeneration have been shown to improve soil fertility, buffer water cycles, protect from drought, and increase yields while having costs as low as $14-20 per hectare. The document argues that investing in evergreen agriculture could reverse land degradation across Africa and proposes a project to scale practices to 500,000 farmers across 8 countries, restoring over 1 million hectares of land.

1. Would you bet on restoration at
scale?

3. Jordán, A. (2015) European Geosciences Union

5. 5

7. Would you bet on restoration at
scale in Africa?

8. World Bank World Development Indicators
South Asia
0
500
1000
1500
2000
2500
3000
3500
4000
4500
5000
1960 1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005
KgperHectare
Sub-Saharan Africa
Latin America
East Asia
Cereal yields by region, 1960-2005

12. And yet there’s hope

14. Trees outside forests, on farms

15. Human population density
Global population density

16. Humans make trees work for their living.

17. Nicaragua: coffee, timber

18. Portugal: livestock, cork

19. Brazil: oil palm, banana, coffee, timber…

20. Liagre F., personal communication
France: wheat, timber

21. Arctic taiga: meat, timber, wood pellets

22. Zambia: maize, F. Albida

23. Niger: sorghum, millet, F. Albida

24. Why?

25. Nutrient cycling

26. Water cycle buffering

27. Drought protection of trees
Forestry:
most roots close to surface
Agroforestry:
most roots at depth
Root density: meters of rootlets /m3 of soil Root density: meters of rootlets /m3 of soil
Depth(cm)
Depth(cm)

29. © agroof

30. Key concept: the Land Equivalency Ratio

31. “The additive maize/cowpea intercropping option
after cotton or maize resulted in an average overall
LER of 1.47, no maize grain penalty, and 1.38 t ha−1
more cowpea fodder production compared with
sole maize.”

32. LER = 1.4 + 0.5 = 1.9• Monoculture teak is not
fertilized (not worth it).
• Maize is always fertilized
• Intercropping maize and
teak (with best spacing +
pruning + thinning) can get
LER values up to 2.0.
Teak & Maize

33. Densidade:
UD1: 81 pl/hectare
UD2 e Conv: 99 plantas/hectare
*
*
98%
125%
27%
14%
71%
149%
99%
49%
0,0
2,0
4,0
6,0
8,0
10,0
12,0
14,0
2011 2012 2013 2014
SAF Biodiverso UD1 SAF Biodiverso UD3
ProduçãodoDendê(ton/hectare)
PROJETO SAF DENDÊ
Produtividade de Dendê
Resultado esperado
t/ha(FFB)
Year 4 (2011) Year 5 (2012) Year 6 (2013) Year 7 (2014)
Castellani et al 2014, Internal Report
Oil palm agroforestry
Plot 1 (81 pl/ha)
)
Oil palm agroforestry
Plot 2 (99 pl/ha)
Monocrop oil palm*
(considering 99 pl/ha)
*Average yields at the same age in the same region according to Perez et al. 2007
Viabilidade de extração de óleo de dendê no Estado do Pará. Viçosa, UFV. 2007.
http://portal.mda.gov.br/portal/saf/arquivos/view/biodisel/18_-_Dende.pdf
Oil palm agroforestry

34. 13
Farmer plot management Sampling
Frequency
Mean
(Kg/Ha)
Standard
error
Maize without fertiliser 36 1322 220.33
Maize with fertiliser 213 1736 118.95
Maize with fertiliser trees 72 3053 359.8
Maize with fertiliser trees & fertiliser 135 3071 264.31
2009/2010 season; data from 6 Malawian districts
Mwalwanda, A.B., O. Ajayi, F.K. Akinnifesi, T. Beedy, Sileshi G, and G. Chiundu 2010
Malawi agroforestry

35. Zinder, Niger, 1980s

36. Zinder, Niger, today.
These 5 million hectares of new agroforest
parklands are yielding
500,000 tonnes
more than before.
(Reij, 2012)

37. Practices Production Resilience Mitigation
Soil fertility Nitrogen fertilizer (e.g. urea) ǂ +++ +/- -
Integrated nutrient mgmt. (e.g. banding, microdosing) ǂ ++ -
Reduced residue burning ɣ ++ + ++
Reduced tillage / no-till ɣ + + +
Green manures (reduced fallow) ɣ +++ ++
Fertilizer trees (e.g. Faidherbia albida) ɣ +++ +++ ++
Conservation agriculture (mulch, no-till, etc.) ɣ ++ ++ ++
Conservation ag with fertilizer trees ǂ +++ ++ +++
Grain, livestock, and fertilizer tree integrationǂ +++ ++ ++
Genetics Improved crop variety (breeding, engineering) ɣ ++ ++ +
Water use Water pumps for irrigation (petrol)ǂ +++ ++ --
Irrigation techniques (amount, timing, technology) ɣ ++ ++ +/-
Microcatchment (e.g. Zai pits, microbasins, terracing)ǂ ++ ++
Rainwater catchment, storage, delivery (e.g. farm ponds) ǂ ++ ++
Information Technology Planting date recommendations ɣ ++ ++
Sentinel warming systems (drought, pests) ɣ + ++
Africa: Maize-mixed Aggregated Assessment

40. AFRICA
RESTORATION
INITIATIVE
Image: Flickr/USAID Kenya

41. 41

42. Some Major Regreening Successes
• Niger: 7,000,000 Ha
• Mali: 500,000 Ha
• Senegal: 200,000 Ha
• Ethiopia: > 1,000,000 Ha
• Ghana, Kenya, Rwanda – X0,000 Ha each
• Several hundred hectares in Somaliland

43. Cost of land restoration with FMNR
Place & Binam (2013):
• In Niger the actual expenditure on the scaling-up of
FMNR has been well below $20 per hectare of
adoption.”
• Project costs of farmer-managed natural regeneration
outscaling in the Maradi Region of were US$14/ha.
• The annual recurrent labor costs per hectare by farm
households to manage the FMNR were also quite low.

44. African Union
Second Africa Drylands Declaration
"RECOMMEND AND PROPOSE that the drylands development
community, through the African Union, and all collaborating and
supporting organizations, commit seriously to achieving the goal
of enabling EVERY farm family and EVERY village across the
drylands of Africa to be practicing Farmer-Managed Natural
Regeneration and Assisted Natural Regeneration by the year
2025."

45. A European Commission challenge
“Scale-Up EverGreen Agriculture to 50
million farmers in Africa.”

46. Evergreening Africa with Trees
Reversing Land Degradation in Africa by
Scaling-up EverGreen Agriculture
• 5 years
• 8 countries: Senegal, Mali, Niger, Ghana, Ethiopia,
Somalia, Kenya, Rwanda
• 500,000 farmers with improved livelihoods
• 1,000,000 Hectares regreened
• EU contribution: 20,500,000 €

47. Betting on small farmers

48. Small farms are the bedrock of
development.
“Asia’s post-war miracle economies emerged by
following a recipe with just three ingredients: land
reform; export-led, state-backed manufacturing; and
financial repression.
The process began with the ousting of the landlords.
Feudal estates were broken up and divided among
small farmers, who also received cheap credit and
valuable advice.
Smallholder farming requires “grotesque” amounts
of labour. But that is a good thing, because countries
as poor as Taiwan or South Korea were in the 1950s
have labour—and only labour—in abundance."
-- The Economist, July 2013
The same applies to today's LDCs.

49. FAO, State of Food and Agriculture 2014
Selected yields by farm size
Smallest ¼ of all farms
Largest ¼ of all farms

51. 3 project components
1. Strengthen the national ability to assess the costs of land
degradation and the economic benefits of investment in
sustainable land management/evergreen agriculture, in 8
African countries.
2. Equip 8 countries with surveillance and analytic tools on land
degradation dynamics including social and economic
dimensions that support strategic decision making and
monitoring in the scaling-up of evergreen agriculture.
3. Support 8 countries in the accelerated scaling-up of
evergreen agriculture by 500,000 smallholder farmers, along
with the development of agroforestry value chains.

52. R2.1 The target areas are mapped and documented, using baseline and trend data for policy decision
making and for monitoring the achievement of the scaling-up targets in each of the countries.
R2.2 Existing large-scale regreening successes at the grassroots in each of the countries are identified,
documented and analysed, and suitable participatory approaches for accelerated scaling-up are
elucidated for each country.
R2.3 Countries' policy and regulatory frameworks become more conducive to the scaling-up of
evergreen agriculture/regreening.
R3.1 Regreening successes are broadly communicated to inspire accelerated scaling-up to achieve the
overall target of 500,000 farmers (62,500 farmers on average per country).
R3.2 Local organisations and service providers are equipped and successfully promote accelerated
regreening at scale to reach at least 500,000 farm households, over an area of at least 1 million
hectares across the selected countries.
R3.3 Value chains to support the upscaling of the evergreen agriculture production systems are
developed or strengthened.

53. iNGO partners
Lead iNGO Key partner # of farmers
Ethiopia CRS Caritas 100,000
Kenya World Vision 70,000
Rwanda World Vision 70,000
Somalia (Somaliand) World Vision 20,000 (incl. Puntland)
Somalia (Puntland) World Vision CARE
Senegal World Vision 70,000
Mali Oxfam Sahel ECO 70,000
Ghana World Vision CRS 50,000
Niger World Vision 50,000

56. Ag and LULUCF emissions: huge
IPCC AR4 GHG emissions by sector in 2004 [Figure 1.3b].
5) Including agricultural waste burning and
savannah burning (non-CO2). CO2 emissions
and/or removals from agricultural soils are
not estimated in this database.
6) Data include CO2 emissions from
deforestation, CO2 emissions from decay
(decomposition) of above-ground biomass
that remains after logging and deforestation,
and CO2 from peat fires and decay of drained
peat soils. Chapter 9 reports emissions from
deforestation only.
30.9%

57. Exported
carbon
(t/ha/yr)
Carbon
restituted to soil
(t/ha/yr)
2
2
4
4
6
6
0
"Modern" agriculure
(1 crop a year)
7 tC/ha/yr
Intermediate cover crops
(2-3 crops a year)
12.5 tC/ha/yr Intermediate cover crops +
agroforestry
16.5 tC/ha/yr
Food production
Soil restitution (fertility)
Biofuels
(fuelwood, anaerobic
digestion…)
Storage in biomass
(timber)
de construction…)
Carbon, fertility... and climate

58. European agroforestry’s
potential amounts to
1/3rd of European Union
emissions!
Huge mitigation potential
EU-28 total emissions (excl. LULUCF), mln T CO2-eq.
Source: European Environmental Agency
Aertsens et al. estimate:
1400 mln T/year

59. Mbow (2012)
Huge mitigation potential
Humid Dry

61. Adaptation

62. Natural catastrophes, trend
Munich Re (2011)

63. Agroforestry and wind resistance
Storm Klaus
January 2009

66. C3/C4 plant productivity versus T°
Wheat
T° (C)
Maize

67. Microclimatic effect of canopy shade
Source: CIMMYT
Lower T° extends the crops’ grain-filling period.

68. Mitigation? Adaptation?
Improved carbon
sink management
[M] Minimized
deforestation and
forest degradation
[M]
Improved adaptive
capacity of the society
[A]
Diminished release
of GHG to the
Atmosphere [M]
Improved
livelihood [A]
Sustainable
forest
management [M]
Reduced loss of
soil carbon stock
[M]
Enhances carbon
sinks [M]
Afforestation and
reforestation [M]
Biodiversity
conservation [A]
Agroforestry
[M] [A]
Soil and water
conservation [A]
Better landscape
management [M] [A]
Improved
agricultural
productivity [A]
Enhanced ecosystem
services and goods
availability [A]

69. Intensive agriculture Agroecological systems
The transition to sustainability
Yield range
Net income

70. 53
Thank you!
p.worms@cgiar.org
Mobile +32 495 24 46 11
Land +32 2 351 6829
www.worldagroforestrycentre.org

71. Natural resources
Inputs
Outputs
The present is win-lose

72. Natural resources
Inputs
Outputs
The future can be win-win.

73. To restore land, think of one species over
all:

75. Thank you.
Patrick Worms
World Agroforestry Centre
WhatsApp: +32495244611
p.worms@cgiar.org