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When the IFAD-funded project started in 1988, few people could have imagined that 15 years later the degraded plateaus would be covered with trees on land restored to production by individual smallholder farmers. And no one imagined that a village on a barren degraded plateau would one day produce enough vegetables to meet its own needs and produce a surplus for sale, because water levels in the…

Key success factors There were several reasons for the success of the restoration initiative. • Implementation had the active participation of the local community; i.e., it was community- led restoration. • Restoration produced short- and long-term economic and environmental benefits. • It systematically included women, girls and youth in restoration activities. •…

Since the mid-1980s, the positive impacts of these simple, cost-efficient water harvesting techniques become clear, following their increasingly widespread adoption. Their use has allowed smallholders to reverse land degradation, improve soil fertility, sustainably increase crop production, achieve food security, and create more productive, diverse and resilient farming systems. At the same time,…

As a farmer in northern Kenya, I came to understand the importance of dryland restoration. After moving to Kaijaido country in the south, I started an initiative to restore the land, increase food security and reduce poverty, supported by a grant from the East African Community with various activities supported by FAO and Yale University. The local Maasai people are pastoral. They…

The adoption of FMNR increased by 50% over 20 years; about 90% of all farmers now encourage natural regeneration on the land that they manage. The key to success is having local institutions that are respected and effective. The experience in Bankass shows that reforestation rates of at least 250 trees per hectare can be achieved by farmer managed natural regeneration on Sahelian agricultural…

In this Briefing • What is desertification? • Measuring and mapping desertification • Desertification and agriculture: a two-way relationship • Agricultural solutions to land degradation • Desertification and EU agriculture • Is the EU acting on desertification? Evidence of desertification Global estimates of total degraded area vary…