Zaï planting pits with manure
Zaï, hoyos de siembra con estiércol
- Date
- revivido en los años 1980 (origen anterior) · confidence low
- Place
- Ouahigouya, Yatenga, Burkina Faso
- Credited to
- Mossi farmers of Yatenga (Yacouba Sawadogo)
- Field
- Life & health
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What it is
Pits of 20-30 cm dug in hardened soil and filled with manure, where sorghum or millet is sown. They catch rain, concentrate fertility and attract termites that aerate the soil. They spread after the droughts of the 1970s-80s.
It is an older traditional practice; Yacouba Sawadogo and local projects reintroduced or publicised it in the 1980s after the drought. No origin date exists.
What it led to
- recovery of degraded Sahelian land
- combination with stone bunds (cordons pierreux)
- farmer-to-farmer exchange of techniques in Niger and Mali