Pabalelo Trust

Shakawe, Botsuana

An Overview Of Our Solution

A small team of activists forming the Pabalelo Trust have started to curb harmful agriculture practice that has contributed to deforestation and low food security in the upper Okavango Delta “Panhandle” in Botswana. By working with farmers & gardeners & training Kalahari-based agriculture as a combination of Permaculture and Conservation Agriculture philosophies, Pabalelo runs a trial & demonstration field while training and monitoring mostly (elderly) women farmers on-site. Traditional resilient methods are integrated to develop the best practice for small scale farmers who face receding rainfall patterns and constant wildlife conflict, especially elephant and hippos. Optimizing food production while engaging the communities in a process of custodianship over their natural resources, gives the incentive of sustained livelihoods

Who is this solution impacting?

Community Type

Rural

Organization type

Sin fines de lucro/No Gubernamental

Ecosystem (select all that apply)

Freshwater

Population impacted

Presently 2000 but potentially 20000 people

Size of agricultural area

Presently covering 32 ha scattered dryland pilots and 6 small garden plots in backyards in the villages.

Production quantity

6 tonnes per ha - more than the usual 2-3 tonnes harvested in the past

People employed

3 full time, 2 part time

Describe your solution

Pabalelo Trust is situated within our target communities. Our demonstration gardens & fields follow a broad and adaptable approach. We share the struggles of the farmers & gardeners who register for training and support. Our field team apply our message at their own homes and fields, as change agents. Our solution is not a blanket approach but a series of practical options for farmers to test and apply and even adapt. The Trust then adopted Conservation Agriculture practices & integrated experience from northern Namibia. We developed and train a combination of organic methods, for e.g. to capture rainwater, cover soils and add nutrients to the sandy soils of our area. We fine-tuned our approach over five years, adapting constantly against much skepticism. Now farmers have seen increased harvests and gardeners have learned how to grow food right at their backdoor, using rainwater, recycled grey water and organic home-waste. Farmers first resisted agroforestry to improve soil fertility and for mulching material, but this year invited us to plant 200 indigenous nitrogen fixing trees in and around fields as windbreaks and living fences. Even if the 5 year program has not reached high numbers of people, a home-grown solution shows hope and is replicable to many similar areas and districts in arid Botswana. Pabalelo Trust’s confidence & self-developed knowledge has grown, our strength being our ability to adapt to challenges and to transfer and demonstrate this knowledge.

Describe your implementation

1. Introduced indigenous leguminous trees for alley cropping and living fences. This has resulted in more food security and has helped recover deforestation and improve biodiversity . 2. Trees provide ground cover and the mulch to enrich soils and Conservation Agriculture employs rainwater harvesting, organic fertilizer and crop rotation, all building soil structure and nutrition. 3. Growing thorny, nitrogen releasing trees trimmed into hedges to prevent cattle, trials with solar flashlights and dried chillies, burning fires in fields, and alarm raising obstacles around fences to ward off elephants. 4. Covering areas invaded by couch grass with recycled waste paper and cardboard to prevent contact with sunlight. Using discarded building materials (old thatch and reeds) on top of the cardboard layers to discourage all grass recovery, adding enrichment and soil recovery. In-field troubleshooting & training, with bi-monthly meetings for farmer clusters + joint workshops for all wards. This continued 6 months after harvest backyard gardening support. Having our own land to experiment on as well as being from the community we serve, means we are able to integrate traditional knowledge with our methods and add value to both. Ensuring government requirements for compensation for subsistence farmers are met, ensuring cash compensation as well as better yields. Enabling dialogue between government & farmers by information sharing on new techniques and apparent success stories. The hands-on, active and participatory method ensures farmer interest all year round and has given us good rapport with communities. Our team speaks the languages of the communities and understand cultural rhythms which helps us adapt to their needs. Sharing our struggles and making ourselves vulnerable by inviting participation and advice. Our first few years were implemented during extreme temperatures and severe droughts, therefore we never could demonstrate real visible success.

External connections

Pabalelo believes in partnerships and collaboration, sharing resources and knowledge. We worked hard at getting government attention and approval and have gained a solid working relationship with the following: • Agricultural Resource Services Programme (ASSP), Ministry of Agriculture, Gaborone. • Department of Forest and Rangeland Resource services (DFRR) Ngamiland. • Department of Crop Production, Ministry of Agriculture, Ngamiland. • Forest Conservation Botswana, a USA fund to promote tree planting in Botswana. Presently our donor. • Ecoexist, a neighbouring NGO focusing on Elephant and human conflict mitigation in our area. • SAVE Wildife Conservation Fund, which partners with us for school holiday environmental education programmes and with Environmental awareness training for early learning and youth, • Botshelo Trust, a sister NGO giving Leadership training and implementing early childhood education programmes in villages, with a wildlife and environmental awareness focus. • Taaibosch Foundation, the Netherlands, a small networking and support body providing us with Board Treasurer services and specialist advice.

What is the environmental or ecological challenge you are targeting with your solution?

1. “Slash and burn” traditional agriculture has reduced trees felled in riverine forests to open up new fields for rain-fed agriculture on virgin soil. 2. Sandy Kalahari soils lose nutrition and microorganisms due to 9 months of extreme heat and no soil cover, due to unsustainable agricultural practice. 3. Free animal movement (including elephants and hippos as well as cattle, donkeys and goats) due to 100 km-wide free-access to drinking water from the Okavango river. This leads to constant raiding of fields, lack of manure for organic fertilizing solutions (animals do not sleep in kraals), poor husbandry, and invasive pioneer species in previously natural forest areas. Irrigated riverbank farming/gardening is impossible due to pioneer plant response to cover depleted and sandy soils, for example, cynodon dactilon (couch grass). Invasion takes place after Year 2, which in turn attracts hippos and hampers gardening efforts of backyard and river bank gardeners.

Describe the context in which you are operating

In the Okavango “Panhandle” area “slash and burn” agriculture was the norm for centuries. Restrictions on allocation of new fields cause infertile soils and with wildlife crop raiding and diminishing rainfall , a downward spiral in food security has been the reality. The traditional efforts of small scale farmers to open up new fields have impacted so much on biodiversity of the riverine forest areas that even veld foods are now scarce. Elephants and hippos break fences, letting in cattle and goats to deplete crop residues, therefore soil liesbare for 9 hot months a year. Pioneer plants e.g. couch grass (cynodon dactilon) and other thorny pioneers therefore rapidly take over and makes rehabilitation very difficult. The Hambukushu culture (the majority tribe) encourages coming of age by felling of trees to open new fields, adding to pressure on indigenous forests and on biodiversity. There is a huge lack of employment for the communities and their children are no longer interested in agriculture. These all lead to dependency on government hand-outs, with the associated social ills that is now dominating a previously proud and independent, self sustaining agricultural community.

How did you impact natural resource use and greenhouse gas emissions?

Dryland farmers (47 and mostly women) no longer plough but dig permanent “planting stations” in rows, planting after having added manure/compost & backfilled the basin for rainwater catchment. This method, alternated with some experimentation with mechanized or animal drawn ripping lines, have reduced the need to till & concentrates soil nutrition in designated areas to maximize plant benefit & improve growth. This coupled with crop rotation and retention of crop residues and nitrogen fixing trees, has started to reverse soil degeneration & low return of the subsistence level farmers’ yields in this area. Although no overwhelming harvest results could be shown for the past years due to series of severe droughts, visible evidence indicate greater resilience because soil structure improved with regards to organic matter content and less compaction. Fewer trees were also felled for clearing fields. Awareness on the role of trees has increased. Farmers are gradually changing mindsets

Language(s)

English, Setswana

Water

Deep ripper furrowing, basin digging and mulching, as well as compost making and soil cover by agroforestry (including the filtering of direct sunlight by more trees in fields) all contribute to less evaporation as well as rainwater capturing. Deep ripper furrowing concentrates rainfall to an increase of 75%. Pabalelo also managed (with USAID funding) to provide 5 wards with a rainwater catchment tanks built to withstand elephant interference.

Food Security/Nutrition

This year visible difference in yields can be attributed to our methods as previous years were too dry. Harvests will be measured and compared in 7 fields in the coming two months. Our backyard gardening training program improved food security for most gardeners who had previously no regular water supply and no means to work around that. With key hole gardens, composting, and grey water recycling, trainees can now water trees and pick greens at their back doors if they adhere to our methods.

Economic/Sustainable Development

More food on the table gives women more confidence and more time, as they can sell some of their produce to gain cash in hand. This also gives them a bigger voice in the communities. However, more status to the women will enhance sustainable development because if young people can put their weight behind organic, soil enhancing methods, agriculture will make more sense for the communities as well as the environment

Climate

More than 500 trees were transplanted to provide nitrogen to previously depleted soils. Apart from the mitigation roles of these trees through oxygen release, the minerals released through leaf dropping, dead branches and bark enrich the soil which increases natural pest control and biodiversity cycles that help nature look after itself. At the same time farmers fell less trees and are aware of the importance of reversing harmful practice, such as reduced burning and veld fires.

Sustainability

Our budget for the past 4 years was around $40k per year. As our clients cannot pay for support services, the investment could in no way match the results reached as our own demonstrations were costly and unsuccessful as described above. However, we hope to lead our farmers into sustainable clusters or cooperatives who jointly market and store their produce to reach a point where they can get income enough to pay for services required. Our other future option, to gain accreditation by government as a training institute, will completely change our style of work and would depend on a mindset in Botswana to adopt “simple” and organic agriculture, something at present not valued by those who hold the purse strings.

Return on investment

No response

Entrant Image

How could we successfully replicate this solution elsewhere?

We believe our model is easily replicable in most districts in Botswana, the only real way in which to engage communities as responsible stakeholders towards food security and environmental management. It needs to begin with the small scale farmers, led by their own community activists. The realities with regards to agriculture are very similar across the semi-desert that is Botswana. Site is not relevant in other areas. However, other districts, where rainfall is at least as high as in this area, are known for repeating the same harmful agricultural practice of many years, & as government services perpetuate such harmful practice the kind of work we do is even more urgent in other areas. We see a situation where small hubs of trained and inspired community activists are equipped to advise and support their own communities by living and working within the communities, as the only way to build up custodians and willing participants

YouTube URL

Pababelo

Overview