"Changement" by Sodre Ousmane and Isaka Belem
When we were in Ouahiqouya, a town in the Northern region of Burkina Faso last December, I saw Sodre Ousmane presenting a radio programme on the farmer's radio "La Voix du Paysan" (The voice of the farmer).
During the programme, Sodre sung along with one of the songs on the radio, and I got enchanted by his melodic voice. Afterwards, I asked him if he could do a song for us, which we would then use as background music for our video testimonials about farmers adapting to the climate change challenges.
Sodre asked what he should sing about, and I suggested "Change" (or "Changement" in French). He sat down with Isaka Belem, and improvised a song, right there on the spot, about the impact of "Change", in the weather, the political climate, the economy...
The song, the authenticity, and "couleur locale" of the melody took us all by surprise.
Meanwhile, we have used the song as a background for one of our testimonial videos, but I also wanted to show the song by itself.
So here is Sodre Ousmane with Isaka Belem on strings. Enjoy!
Farmers adapting to climate change:
Helene Nana from Burkina Faso
[i-Helene Nana on her vegetable farm in Burkina Faso]
“Twenty years ago, famine reigned our area”, says Helene. “The men went off to Côte d’Ivoire, Mali, Togo and all countries around us. They farmed other people’s lands. But we, the women, we could not move. We had to raise the children. And it was hard.”
“You know, for a farmer, the crop is everything. As the weather changed, as the erosion took our soil away, we were left with infertile land. Whatever small crops we could still harvest, was not enough for our kids. They got sick, many died. Those were very hard times.”
Adama, the chairman from the farmers’ union, had told us how the village succeeded in constructing a dam. “That was good as a drinking hole for the cattle”, Helene explains, “but I realized we could do more with it, and thought about growing vegetables during the dry season. We never did that, I had no experience, but I wanted to give it a try. If you don’t try, you won’t learn, in my opinion.” (...)
Read my full post on the CCAFS blog...
Farmers adapting to climate change:
Ganame Ousseni from Burkina Faso
[i-Burkina Faso farmer]
“You have no idea”, says Ganame Ousseni, a cattle farmer in Ninigui in the North of Burkina Faso, “You can not imagine. When I was a small boy, the grass was this high”, and he holds his arm above his head. “We used to hunt wild animals here. We had loads of cattle too.”
But now it is gone. The forest and the grazing grounds. The whole area is barren with a compacted crust as top soil. “What were we to do?”, Ousseni shakes his head, “We had to stay here to mind the crops, so we gave our cattle to nomads passing through. They herded them for us, taking the cows to the grazing grounds hundreds of miles away, all the way up to Mali. At the end of the dry season, when the cattle came back from the migration, we saw we lost more cattle each year. Some were stolen along the way, or were eaten by wild animals. Our herd disseminated.” (...)
Read my full post on the CCAFS blog...
Farmers adapting to climate change:
Ganame Adama from Burkina Faso
[i-farmer in Burkina Faso]
“My grandparents grew crops without any fertilizer, and had no problems. But with the 20 hectares I inherited, the yield was not enough to even feed my own family”, sighs Ganame Adama. “The forest was gone; the fertile soil was taken away by the waters gushing over the land during the rainy season. A hard crust was everything we were left with. We had to find ways to use that water.”
The people from Ninigui, in Burkina Faso’s north, looked for advise from other farmers who lived through similar challenges. They learned how to build small dams, called ‘diguettes’, ‘digues’ or ‘digues filtrantes’ to break the water flow and block the fertile ground from running off: Using a simple long tube, filled with water, they mark ‘contour lines’ with sticks: areas on their flat plots which are at an equal height. Then they stack rocks, only half a foot high, following those contour lines.
“These dams break the flow of the water as it gushes off the plains. While the rain water slowly seeps through one dam, the soil carried by the water, sinks to the bottom, forming strips of fertile land. The water leaking through one dam is stopped again by the dam on the next contour line, about twenty meters further down the slow slope. And again on the next, and again. Each time, a fertile strip of land forms between the lined-up rocks”, explains Adama. (...)
Read my full post on the CCAFS blog...
Ninigui: A war against… erosion and desertification.
[i-barren landscape Burkina Faso]
In the north of Burkina Faso, about one hour’s drive from Ouahigouya, the trees change into low scrubby bushes, the grass turns yellow, and as we drive on, it eventually disappears. The dirt track dissolves into a rocky river bedding, climbs up a steep ridge and levels on a plateau. We stop for second, and take in the scenery.
The landscape is barren. The soil is a dark brown crusted gravel, often bereaved of any vegetation. Houses are grouped together, with the mosques and low mud grain stores sticking out. Here and there a group of kids walks to the school at the edge of the village. A large troop of cows, herded by two nomads, kicks up a cloud of dust.
Ninigui feels like a border town. A village on the edge of the desert and on the edge of survival.
Ganame Adama, who heads NAAM, the local farmers’ union, takes us to his field where he just harvested his millet crop. “Look around you”, he says, “All of this used to be forest. At the time of my father’s father, they hunted wild animals here. They grew a crop without using any fertilizer. They had crops every year without much effort.”
As the forest was cut for firewood, gradually the rains carried away the thin top soil. To make matters worse, the rainy season shifted: it started later, lasted shorter, and came in repeated violent squalls, often causing flooding as the barren ground was no longer able to absorb the rain.
“Rains just gushed over the ground”, Adama explains, “In the hills, it dug out ravines, emptying into the flats. The water would just carry away whatever we had sown. It was no use to apply fertilizer neither. Each time it rained, everything was carried away.” (...)
Read my full post on the CCAFS blog...
West-Africa Climate Change Adaptation and Food Security videos
Here are the testimonial videos we shot for the CCAFS project (Climate Change Adaptation and Food Security) in Ghana, Burkina Faso and Mali (West Africa).
Clip#1: Tidiane Diarra (Mali)
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Clip#2: Mahamane Diallo (Mali)
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Clip#3: Amadou Fane (Mali)
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Clip#4: Arouna Bayoko (Mali)
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Clip#5: Sara Togo (Mali)
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Clip#6: Yusif Hadi (Ghana)
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Clip#7: Jumuo Namaayi (Ghana)
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Clip#8: Naakpi Kuunwena (Ghana)
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Clip #10: Joel Yiri (Ghana)
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Clip #11: Bougouna Sogoba (Mali)
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Clip #13: Ganame Adama (Burkina Faso)
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Clip #14: Helene Nana (Burkina Faso)
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Clip #15: Ganame Ousseni (Burkina Faso)
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Clip #16: Hermann Togo (Burkina Faso)
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