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Africa is building a Great Green Wall to prevent expansion of the Sahara

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Re: Africa is building a Great Green Wall to prevent expansion of the Sahara

#51

Post by singularity2001 »

legitster wrote: post #4

Fascinating video, but still it worries me how sustainable this is. This isn't a "rewilding" process - there is a LOT of manual human labor going into supporting very low yield agriculture. It seems like this idea relies on a long term low wage workforce willing to live on subsistence agriculture.

   >> there is a LOT of manual human labor
same reaction. someone bring power shovel diggers.

Also it should be combined with the other Great Green Wall projects, the most successful being "just plant trees" to shade the crops and keep the area cool and humid.

Re: Africa is building a Great Green Wall to prevent expansion of the Sahara

#52

Post by fuzztester »

neontomo wrote: post #30

If you're interested in the trials and tribulations of regreening a desert landscape, I recommend this YouTuber with an ambitious dream: https://www.youtube.com/@dustupstexas

Also a Geoff Lawton video called something like greening the desert.

A lot of his stuff (including that desert video) can be found here:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39472378

Re: Africa is building a Great Green Wall to prevent expansion of the Sahara

#53

Post by fuzztester »

canadiantim wrote: post #45
neontomo wrote: post #30

If you're interested in the trials and tribulations of regreening a desert landscape, I recommend this YouTuber with an ambitious dream: https://www.youtube.com/@dustupstexas

Very cool to see he's using prickly pear cactus. I'm currently working on a project for regreening arid regions in California using prickly pear on degraded water-restricted former agricultural fields. The prickly pear really is optimally suited for regenerating desert landscapes because they are one of nature's great survivors of extreme conditions. Furthermore, they can produce impressive biomass yields which helps…

Very interesting, thanks for sharing.

Re: Africa is building a Great Green Wall to prevent expansion of the Sahara

#54

Post by vidarh »

singularity2001 wrote: post #51
legitster wrote: post #4

Fascinating video, but still it worries me how sustainable this is. This isn't a "rewilding" process - there is a LOT of manual human labor going into supporting very low yield agriculture. It seems like this idea relies on a long term low wage workforce willing to live on subsistence agriculture.

>> there is a LOT of manual human labor same reaction. someone bring power shovel diggers. Also it should be combined with the other Great Green Wall projects, the most successful being "just plant trees" to shade the crops and keep the area cool and humid.

How much do they cost compared to the labour cost that also provides additional employment options and boost the local economy?

"Just plant trees" without doing anything to ensure the trees can survive is not meaningful in all conditions. What they're doing here is effectively "just planting trees" in a way that ensures the area stays moist enough for the trees to survive, and leveraging the same space to grow crops.

Re: Africa is building a Great Green Wall to prevent expansion of the Sahara

#56

Post by xref »

animal_spirits wrote: post #6

I've been following Andrew Millison's work for a while, he's got a lot of really wonderful introductory lessons on permaculture. He's got an online course at the University of Oregon, I'm planning on taking it sometime soon

Looks like Millison is with Oregon State University

https://workspace.oregonstate.edu/osu-permaculture-design

Re: Africa is building a Great Green Wall to prevent expansion of the Sahara

#57

Post by krmboya »

bluGill wrote: post #31
jermaustin1 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It seems like this idea relies on a long term low wage workforce willing to live on subsistence agriculture. I think that is already the population. What the attempt seems to be is to create a green belt that prevents further desertification of semi-arable land that they are already subsistence farming on, because if the desert keeps moving, these people will cease to exist. Captialistically/economically, there is…

These people right now don't have good options. Get them enough food locally and they no longer need to chase all over trying to find enough work to afford food. In turn that means they can send their kids to school and those now educated kids can in turn apply modern things. Some of that is those kids - the ones who don't love farming - leave to better jobs in the city, while others - those who love farming - apply…

Can you expound a bit on sustainability of modern farming techniques?

It has always been my understanding that modern farming is reliant on a large industrial outlay and global trade for things like fertiliser and pesticides. And that it also affects the soil in a way that is hard or impossible to reverse (extraction of certain nutrients that cannot be easily replenished naturally)

Re: Africa is building a Great Green Wall to prevent expansion of the Sahara

#58

Post by krmboya »

legitster wrote: post #4

Fascinating video, but still it worries me how sustainable this is. This isn't a "rewilding" process - there is a LOT of manual human labor going into supporting very low yield agriculture. It seems like this idea relies on a long term low wage workforce willing to live on subsistence agriculture.

> It seems like this idea relies on a long term low wage workforce willing to live on subsistence agriculture.

There are some who are content with low wages and a simple life of living off the land. Shouldn't technology make this even easier, buy making low cost education available to their kids and making more affordable healthcare possible?

Re: Africa is building a Great Green Wall to prevent expansion of the Sahara

#59

Post by wodenokoto »

legitster wrote: post #4

Fascinating video, but still it worries me how sustainable this is. This isn't a "rewilding" process - there is a LOT of manual human labor going into supporting very low yield agriculture. It seems like this idea relies on a long term low wage workforce willing to live on subsistence agriculture.

Some of the trenches are there to solely produce biomass. They don’t don’t go into it in the video but it hints to me that they are trying to change the soil.

Now the ground is hard dirt and water runs off. The half moons capture water and makes it possible to grow a tree.

Roots will loosen the soil, and combined with biomass from the bushes in the trenches you can imagine there’s a path towards changing the composition to something more arable in the traditional sense.

To me it sounds like the editable crops are a carrot to keep the locals working toward a much longer term goal.

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