Dynamic Agro-Forestry: Malagasy people changing practices, changing lives, and benefitting the world
In the previous RFL post, we met Joséphine, a shop-owner and farmer in the PK7 village in Moramanga, part of the Moramanga district in Madagascar’s Toamasina province.
In that post we learnt about how Joséphine changed her and her family’s life by taking part in savings and loans projects run by Money for Madagascar and our Malagasy partner Mitsinjo Association.
In this second part, we meet her again, and consider how Dynamic Agro-Forestry is helping Malagasy farmers improve their yields, incomes and lives, while also preserving, protecting and expanding the vibrant, extraordinary rainforest on which we all rely: helping Malagasy people change lives, change practices, and benefit the world we all share.
An ecosystem threatened by traditional agricultural practices
In eastern Madagascar, forest ecosystems are under intense and increasing pressure, particularly due to widespread slash-and-burn farming.
This agricultural technique, known in Malagasy as ‘tavy’, consists of burning forest areas to free and use fertile soil.
The idea is that Malagasy people – 80 per cent of whom rely on agriculture (many on subsistence farming) for income and access to food – can increase yields, incomes and living standards, by increasing the land they can farm.
But not only does severely harm forests and the other flora and fauna within them, the process does not deliver long-term benefits even to farmers: after one or two harvests, soil fertility drops drastically. This pushes farmers to burn new areas, in a vicious cycle of deforestation and poverty.
And in many parts of Madagascar which are especially rich in biodiversity deforestation jeopardises not only the environment, but also the livelihoods of local communities, which depend on natural resources.
This matters. The Malagasy rainforest is home to five per cent of all the world’s species, and of those, 80 per cent are found only here.
Deforestation is taking a severe toll on Malagasy wildlife – one example is that there are now more ring-tailed lemurs in zoos than in the wild – and these creatures deserve to be protected, especially from the impacts of poverty which is not of their or Malagasy people’s making.
And of course, we all rely on the world in which we live to survive: we need the rainforests to hep provide us with the air we breathe and to help us offset the effects and size of the climate catastrophe we all face.
Dynamic Agro-Forestry (DAF)
Money for Madagascar (MfM), through its Resilient Forest and Livelihoods (RFL) program, is helping Malagasy people use a meaningful, effective alternative to slash-and-burn agriculture: Dynamic Agro-Forestry (DAF).
DAF, which we and our partners began in several Malagasy locations in May 2022, uses diverse crops on the same plot: vegetables, cereals, tubers, fruit trees and woody species grow in the same place, which promotes soil fertility, improves yields and offers year-round production.
It means farmers can remain on the same land, removes the need to clear new plots from forest areas, and helps Malagasy people increase yields, income and living standards, improving their lives, without harming – and in many cases through protecting and expanding – the Malagasy rainforest.
We have, through our partner the Mitsinjo Association, provided not just equipment, but theoretical and practical training to help people make DAF work for them and their local environment.
And so, we meet Joséphine Rasoantenaina again.
As we noted in our previous post, Joséphine is 52, a farmer and shop owner and a mother of four.
She lives in PK7 village, Moramanga district, Alaotra-Mangoro region, Toamasina province, and her farming has been a means by which she tries to support her family.
Like most farmers in her area, Joséphine practised traditional slash-and-burn farming. But yields were low, soils depleted, and the ceaseless search for new land was backbreaking, unstable and environmentally destructive.
She says: ‘Before, I only grew one type of crop on a plot, often without fertiliser. I sowed 10kg of beans and I harvested barely 12kg. The land quickly became barren. I then had to look for another plot, which I burned to cultivate, but after a single harvest, the land also became infertile. It was a never-ending circle.’
Joséphine was enthusiastic about the DAF project and signed up on its arrival in May 2022. She took the initiative’s training sessions, learning DAF principles including compost making, intercropping management, and maintaining her plot in a sustainable way.
Her farming no longer provides only enough food for her family, but enough that she can also sell crops at market.
She has achieved food security, additional income, and respect for the environment, and has actually decreased the amount of work she has to do.
She said: ‘Today, thanks to the DAF technique, I no longer have to leave my plot. It has become fertile and productive all year round. I learned how to make compost, which greatly improved the quality of my crops.
‘I now grow cucumbers, beans, corn, rice, sweet potatoes, and bredes in permanent cultivation.
‘With 10kg of bean seeds, I can now harvest up to five times more than before! I never stop harvesting, every season, and I even have a surplus to sell at the market. I can feed my family without difficulty.
‘The DAF is really a sustainable solution. Thanks to this project, we no longer have food shortages. The whole community is beginning to understand that it is possible to cultivate differently, without destroying the forest. We are deeply grateful to the Mitsinjo Association and all those who helped us learn this new technique.’
Joséphine’s success is repeated with more and more farmers across Andasibe, where people are using DAF to significantly improve their crops and quality of life. DAF directly reduces the causes of deforestation, and helps Malagasy people transition to resilient agriculture, adapted to climate change and local realities.
Our work – Money for Madagascar’s and Joséphine’s – shows solutions exist to both poverty and environmental damage: that development need not compete with or harm the environment, and that with rural communities can become agents of change for sustainable forest management and better food security.
YOU can help the RFL programme help Malagasy people and the extraordinary Madagascar wilderness, flora and fauna.
We achieved our Green Match Fund target on Friday 25 April – thank you so much!
But if you still want to donate to the RFL programme, please do so here: your donation will be very gratefully received and will help Malagasy people lift themselves from poverty and hunger, and protect and expand the Malagasy rainforest, upon which we all rely.
Your donation will benefit:
Malagasy people who deserve as we all do to live in reasonable comfort, free from risk of malnutrition and harm: your donation will help us provide the platform from which they can increase their incomes, produce the food they need, and develop and manage their own initiatives and ideas. You will help change lives, absolutely for the better
The Malagasy rainforest and all the animals and plants within it (the Malagasy wilderness contains five per cent of all the world’s species of flora and fauna: 80 per cent of those are found nowhere else on the planet): your donation will give Malagasy people the means to protect and expand the forests, and safeguard the animals and plants it contains and supports
Everyone: the world relies on its forests. That includes all of us. Even if we did not have a moral responsibility to protect – or at least not be responsible for harming – the living things with which we share the planet, our rainforests provide air we breathe and are central to our hopes and efforts to reduce and mitigate the impacts of climate change. Your work and generosity will, in this way, benefit every person – every living thing – on Earth
Thank you!
Thanks so much for reading, and please help us give Malagasy people the platform they need to improve their lives and health, and protect and promote the magnificent ecosystem in which they live, and on which we all rely.
Malagasy
Cymraeg
Français
DAF, which we and our partners began in several Malagasy locations in May 2022, uses diverse crops on the same plot: vegetables, cereals, tubers, fruit trees and woody species grow in the same place, which promotes soil fertility, improves yields and offers year-round production.
