ICARDA Caravan, Issue No. 20/21

Focus

Combating Desertification, Drought and Poverty

By Mark Winslow and Surendra Varma

uried alive. Imagine deserts growing like cancers, swallowing up farmlands and towns as they expand. The idea is frightening enough to be made into a Hollywood horror movie.

The threat seemed very real in the early to mid-20th century, as some deserts expanded southwards across Africa’s vast Sahel region, which lies just below the great Sahara Desert. To everyone’s relief, though, longer-term research found that the Sahara was not really growing. Its apparent advance was due to extended periods of drought that came and went. But many now worry that global warming may bring back this unwelcome horror—like the frightening movie monster that refuses to die.

A new analysis by the global, non-profit Desertification, Drought, Poverty and Agriculture Consortium (DDPA), released in a workshop at the World Conservation Congress in Bangkok on 21 November 2004 concludes that the desertification and drought problems remain as troubling as ever. But it also points to evidence that some communities are finding ways to fight it, and win.

The DDPA provides research in support of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (CCD). The DDPA is jointly convened by ICARDA and the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) based in India.

Droughts are especially destructive for poor farmers and animal herders. Animals die, or must be sold off at low prices before they die. Crops wither. The few remaining trees are cut down for firewood. Soils are left without the protective cover of trees, crops and native plants. Without that protection they are easily blown away by wind or washed away by rains.

“When agriculture declines, poor people are hurt the most,” says Dr Per Rydén, former Director of the Global Mechanism of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification. “They don’t have savings or insurance to carry them through the dry years. They often have no choice but to leave their ancestral lands in search of work. They become environmental refugees, migrating into overcrowded cities or to the distant shores of developed countries that do not want them.”

According to the Secretariat of the CCD, dryland degradation now threatens about 30% of the earth’s terrestrial surface and already affects approximately 70% of these dry areas, which are home to about 250 million people in more than 110 countries. Another one billion people are at risk if these trends continue.

The CCD sees sustainable development as the way out of the desertification problem, and views research as important because it finds new ways to achieve this. “Since desertification and the environment are closely linked, we have to integrate both in our research strategy. This is why the DDPA uses ‘Building Livelihoods, Saving Lands’ as its motto,” says Dr Richard Thomas of ICARDA.

“The doom and gloom captures headlines, but there are also many success stories that need to be told,” says Dr Barry Shapiro of ICRISAT. “Farmers and herders are willing to take risks and change their practices if they see that their livelihoods will improve as a result. They are especially keen to respond to new market opportunities, for example, to sell new products to growing urban centers.”

Through assistance from the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), the African Development Bank, the African Development Fund and the Government of Morocco, for example, thousands of goat herders in parched eastern Morocco agreed to rest a three-million hectare area of range land so that the vegetation could recover. Development aid provided them with barley to feed their animals in the meantime. Once the lands were covered with lush grasses again, the herders agreed to control the grazing at a level that the land could sustain.

Research in breeding new strains of crop plants has found types that do better despite the drought and heat. Drought-tolerant wheat varieties from ICARDA and CIMMYT (International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center) are spreading in West Asia and North Africa. In dryland India, ICRISAT research has found ways to increase the yield of an important legume crop called pigeonpea by causing it to mature early, before the droughts set in.

Recent studies by Dr Shenngen Fan and Dr Peter Hazell at the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) in Washington D.C. have shown that in India and China, a higher payoff from development aid was being delivered from the drylands compared to wetter areas.

“One of the most important roles the DDPA can play is to help exchange information and new research findings,” says Prof. Dr Adel El-Beltagy, Director General of ICARDA. “By bringing so many partners together from all over the world, we can bring focus and scientific strength to help support the world’s commitment to combating desertification, drought and poverty in some of the world’s poorest countries.”

For more information, visit www.ddpa.net

Dr Mark Winslow is Facilitator for the DDPA, and is based in Germany (m.winslow@t-online.de); Dr Surendra Varma is Head of Communication, Documentation and Information Services at ICARDA.

Contents | About ICARDA and the CGIAR | From the Director General
Table of Issues | ICARDA Publications | ICARDA Home