Research shows adding kitchen waste and charcoal produces earth that has 300 percent more organic carbon
DAKAR, Senegal (Thomson Reuters Foundation) — A farming technique practised for centuries in West Africa, which transforms nutrient-poor rainforest soil into fertile farmland, could combat climate change and revolutionize farming across the continent, researchers say.
Adding kitchen waste and charcoal to tropical soil can turn it into fertile, black soil that traps carbon and reduces emissions of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, according to a study carried out by the University of Sussex in England.
The soil produced by the 700-year-old practice, known as “African dark earths,” contains up to 300 percent more organic carbon than other soil and is capable of supporting far more intensive farming, said the anthropologist behind the study.
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“Mimicking this ancient method has the potential to transform the lives of thousands of people living in some of the most poverty and hunger stricken regions in Africa,” said James Fairhead of the University of Sussex.
The research was carried out by anthropologists and soil scientists who lived with communities in Liberia and Ghana while analyzing almost 200 sites across the countries, the study said.
A previous top-down approach from the scientific community and lack of engagement with African farmers may explain why such a simple method had not been studied until now, Fairhead said.
“Relations of power in West Africa had been hiding the skills and wisdom of local farmers,” he said.
“Scientists need to pay more attention and respect to existing practices, especially if these practices can boost food production and sequester carbon.”
Similar soil created by pre-Columbian era inhabitants of Brazil’s Amazon forest have recently been discovered, said Dawit Solomon, author of the study published earlier this summer in the journal Frontiers in Ecology and Environment.
“What is most surprising is that … these two isolated indigenous communities living far apart in distance and time were able to achieve something that the modern-day agricultural management practices could not achieve until now,” he said.
An estimated 180 million people in sub-Saharan Africa are affected by soil degradation, which costs them $68 billion a year, according to a 2014 report by Agriculture for Impact.
Climate change, desertification, the depletion of mineral nutrients, improper use of fertilizer and a lack of infrastructure are compounding the problem, the report found.
