Using date palms to hold back the desert

Burkina Faso is encouraging farmers to grow date palms to stop the advance of the desert under a programme supported by the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO). At least 200 peasant farmers are to be trained to plant and maintain the trees, the head of the programme, Pooda Nazaire, told IRIN.

"The date palm is best suited to stop the sand dunes because of its height," Nazaire said. "So far we had used short tree species but they were always outgrown by the sand dunes."

The programme, which is based on previous studies at the national and regional levels, will cover the northern provinces of Seno, Soum, Oudalan and Yahga, and employ 30 experts. Local people in the target area would benefit from the programme by making baskets from palm leaves and selling its fruits. "The date palm is an edible product of the populations in the Sahel and there is a real market to be exploited," Pooda said.

Only 13 percent of Burkina Faso's territory is suitable for farming, whereas 83 percent of its 11 million people live in rural areas. The two-year programme would lay the groundwork for a larger scale programme using more trees, Pooda said.

FAO is backing the programme with US $237,000. It supported a similar project in 1994-97 which planted 45,000 trees and reforested 76 hectares of desert land.