He took barren and dry lands and turned them into incredible forests. People thought he was insane as they fled dying villiages. They burned his forests. He replanted his forests and tripled his crop yields, becoming a hero to farmers all over.
Mr. Sawadogo’s heresy revolved around transforming the practice of what local farmers called zaï — digging small pits to capture precious rainwater. These farmers typically waited until the start of the rainy season, at the beginning of summer, to dig the zaï.
But Mr. Sawadogo began well before, when the earth was bone-dry. And he dug the pits wider and deeper. He put manure and rocks in the bottom of them. He made use of termites to help break up the land. The manure contained seeds. When the rain came, the rocks helped retain the water, and the water turned the seeds into seedlings, which he nurtured. The soil would stay moist for several weeks after the rainfall.
“The results were striking; the soil improved along with his crop yield,” the U.N. said in announcing his award. “He was able to grow trees in the arid ground.
Man optimized the tradition to better serve everyone’s needs. It may sound obvious for us, but fundamental changes like that require flexibility and courage many lack. No wonder he cited that no one talked to him and called him a madman for working on something equivalent to what Trek’s or Warhammer’s warp tech could be to us.
I feel like that is not obvious. He used nature as his tools in new ways. Actually improving soil quality is not easy. (Dumping a bunch of nitrogen fertilizer on it doesn’t count, i’m sorry to say.)
I’m not an agriculture laborer, so I’m ignorant in how it works. Are his ways revolutionary not only to his nation, but to the world too? From the article I thought it was more about him being a tough bastard who ignored the dogma, did the things he discovered as working (that we already know), to the result achieved by his relentless work in these conditions everyone gave up in.
Well that’s a little skewed imo, though it’s a typical way of thinking about things so i don’t blame you. It’s not that this process can just be replicated worldwide to get the same results, that wouldn’t work. It’s that he optimized the process to his specific conditions, taking advantage of the tools and opportunities his environment presented. He was able to do that probably because he experimented and paid careful attention to the results. That’s the real secret.
The Western model is to find something that works and then replicate it as much as you can, but if you do that with agriculture it’s no good. The conditions of the soil, weather, plants and animals, how all those things play off of the crop you’re growing, etc all influence the results and can be different in different areas, even ones nearby.
What made him successful wasn’t that he invented something new to the whole world but that he figured something out that worked for his specific situation.
This is a gift article from the NYTimes, so anyone should be able to read it!
Thank you for posting this. This is such a great story!
No problem! Was fun to read about him. He sounds like a good person :)
Anyone taking bets about how long it’ll be before an idiot/group of idiots completely destroys his life work in a matter of days?
They tried multiple times, he eventually got the government to fence it off to protect it :)
