Land and Agricultural Systems in West African Small Watershed

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In tropical Africa, agriculture is mostly upland crops by traditional system, which destroys upland forests, and lowlands have not been yet widely used. Tropical Africa's total potential for lowland sawah, paddy, based farming is more than 20 million hectares. Among the lowlands, inland valleys are especially important for sawah development. The sustainable productivity of lowland sawah systems is over ten times as high as that in upland cropping systems because of Geological fertilization, i.e., soil, nutrients and water flow, from upland to lowland in a watershed. Because of this, if these 20 million ha of potential land were turned into sawah fields in 50 to 100 years from now, that would not only bring about food for 500 million to one billion people but also prevent deforestation of more than 200 million ha, which would ultimately pave the way to restore forest. Based on the three years of research, we proposed the ecotechnology based strategy and practical and participatory approached for the reforestation and the checking desertification through lowland sawah development in West Africa. The carbon to be fixed by restored forests will reach about 2.5-5 tons per ha per year and will total to 500 million to one billion tons a year in 50-100 years from now.