Regenerative agriculture—rebuilding the soil’s organic matter to improve soil health and reduce water and chemical inputs—is gaining ground among farmers around the world. Even global companies like McCain, the giant potato grower and processor, have adopted aspects of it to maintain output and increase resilience to climate change.
Farmers are now demonstrating another advantage of regenerative techniques—resilience to external shocks caused by war.
The US/Israeli war on Iran has driven up fertilizer costs. In Kenya’s Kisumu region, family farmers have reduced and even eliminated those costs (as well as pesticide costs) through the use of “green manure”– glyricidia sepum, piliostigma reticulatum, calliandra, canavalia insiformi, and different types of legumes.
The use of “green manure” has proven effective in helping raise yields, reduce costs and increase profits and incomes in Kisumu. There are also early positive results with farmers in the Gnagna Province of Burkina Faso and the Timissa Commune of Tominian Cercle in Mali.
World Neighbors, an international development organization based in Oklahoma City, has teamed with local partners on these and regenerative agriculture projects in other countries.
