United Nations Radio

Mali farmer

With sand blocking the channels feeding Mali's Lake Faguibine, the area dried up and local people slipped deeper into hunger. The answer was simple: unblock the channels. Thanks to the food assistance supplied by WFP, local people were able to do it themselves.

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Timbuktu - few places in the world have such an air of mystery, this city in the north of Mali is timeless and mythical. It sits right on the edge of the Sahara Dessert.

80 kilometers west is the Lake Faguibine system. This remote region was once one of the country's most fertile areas. But in the 70s, there were catastrophic droughts the lake started drying up and the region's prosperity evaporated long with the water.

In 2006, the government set up the Lake Faguibine authority to reopen the channels. The lake is fed by two main canals from the Niger River. Clearing the sand which now blocked them was difficult. The heavy machinery which was first brought in got bogged down in the sand. The answer was to do it manually so it approached WFP for food for work project. While the men cleared the channels, the women planted trees which helped hold back the dessert. So far, some 200 thousand trees have been planted.

"There's no comparison with life before and after WFP. We were so tired before WFP came here with food for our work."

News of the project spread quickly. Many farmers who had abandoned the region came back and it provided much needed food to some of Mali's most vulnerable groups. In just three years, the work has produced the change which is nothing short of a miracle. The soil in and around the lake is so fertile. The farmers can harvest one crop and immediately plant another. Their animals are always well fed. They are not dependent on rainfall the ground water here is plentiful and stretches for five kilometers. This is organic farming at its purest.

"The vegetation is now thanks to water because if we had not had water you couldn't do anything here, no farming, nothing. It is thanks to the water. That's how we've managed to do everything you see here."

The water which has been released into the region also means pastoralists have water for their animals. They no longer have to compete with the farmers for water.

"The animals have water, they have food. People have food and even Lake Faguibine has ?before that there was nothing , it was dry, there was no water. There were problems between farmers and pastoralists. Now there are no more problems."

But the dessert is always on the move. Even the dunes far from the channels need to be stabilized before they become a threat. Dunes and eroding cliffs of sand need constant work which WFP is supporting with its food for work project. Dessili Amagu of WFP in Timbuktu says this is a project which should be supported.

"It's a rather simple project but which had had a considerable impact. It has benefited the local population, the environment and the biodiversity of the region. This has cost us on $255 thousand which shows that with a small effort, one can have a huge impact on vulnerable populations."

It's a small price to pay for ensuring food security in one of Africa's most impoverished countries

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PRESENTER: That report was prepared by the World Food Programme.

Duration: 3'53"